Hi. I’m Emilie. For as long as I can remember, I have had two passions: sewing and fabulous gowns. Particularly if they were from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. I started sewing when I was four, making clothes for our half-feral barn cat, Pussywillow. They weren’t very good clothes, but I don’t think she noticed. I graduated to Barbie clothes and was eventually gifted with my own sewing machine, at age 7. It was a TERRIBLE machine, but I was a terrible seamstress, so it was okay. That machine had every fault you could imagine: it ate bobbins; it’s tension knob was both wildly temperamental and wildly inaccurate; it required the eyesight of an eagle and the hand of a surgeon to thread; it could loop and snarl a bobbin thread better and faster than any other machine out there. Every garment sewn with it felt like going to battle against a cunning foe. Every armscythe a victory. I loved it. I loved the challenge of taking a three dimensional object, flattening into two dimensions to make a pattern and then using that pattern to turn two dimensional fabric into a three dimensional garment. Sewing was magic to me. With nothing more than a needle, thread and fabric I could make a thing that did not previously exist. I could manifest dresses. It felt like a super power. It still feels like a super power. 

My mother was not a woman for the domestic arts but luckily I grew up in the shadow of two legendary seamstresses: my grandmothers. My father’s mother was known for her incredible ability to make a perfectly fitting garment just by eying a person up. She was also fast. When I was 13, she made me a perfectly fitted dress for a wedding in under 90 minutes after giving me a quick up and down from across the room. (It was baby pink. It had three tiers of white lace ruffles and a yoke that was ruffled, lacy and topped off with a pussy bow. I wore it with white high-heeled cowboy boots, thank you very much). But, if she had a fault, it was that the inside of her garments were often unfinished trash. My mother’s mother was legendary for the couture quality of her garments and finishings. Each was a work of art. I remember playing dress up in a coat she had made for some high school formal or other of my mother’s. It was floor length and made entirely of peacock eyelash lace. It was fully lined in chartreuse silk shantung. It was tacky and it was high art rolled into one perfect piece. I still have it. 

House of VerMillions is my ode to their legacy: a dedication to making custom garments that are both beautifully fitted and beautifully finished. For the vast majority of our history as clothing wearing creatures, our garments were custom made for us. Each garment was a unique reflection of its wearer. The Industrial Revolution changed this. The creation of the fast fashion industry has caused untold human and environmental suffering. It is not only exploitative and massively polluting, it leads to the homogenization of style and the limitation of self-expression. It strips from us part of what makes us unique. Slow fashion allows us to share our true sense of self with the world. Wearing vintage and handmade garments are an act of protest. An act of self-love. Welcome to the revolution- you’re going to look fabulous.