NOVEMBER 2017
I've dedicated my career to art and aesthetics by way of luxury fashion. I've been a Founder, Creative Director, Buyer and Stylist in the industry for 16 years. The vast majority of my experience comes from Founding Totokaelo in 2003. What began as a single door in Seattle grew into a bi-coastal and online specialty retailer globally acknowledged for curating the best in luxury fashion.
My interest in fashion and clothing isn't shallow. I'm captivated by fashion's ability to influence culture and challenge social norms. The clothing we wear is a visual representation of our values, and that representation matters and influences the world around us.
Within fashion, I resonate with designers who celebrate female strength and intellect with an irreverent attitude. I'm inspired and influenced by Martin Margiela, Issey Miyake, Phoebe Philo, Rei Kawakubo and Dries Van Noten among others.
I love my job. I love attending Paris and Milan runway shows and walking a new season’s collections. However, I’m curvy and finding clothing that I love and that fits, is a challenge. My desire to resolve this issue led me to question fashion’s current linear thinking around size. The industry standard is to create a sample size 2 or 4 and apply standard grade rules to create patterns for all the other sizes. This system by design infers that women sized 2 and 4 have the same proportions as women sized 12 and 14, which isn't the case. Currently, women’s clothing is designed to fit the same body type at different heights. As a response, I’ve created a multidimensional size chart that addresses the broad range of women’s bodies.
ROUCHA is a fashion collection for women—curvy, straight, short and tall. It’s a solution for shorter women forced to hem all their clothing. For curvy women on whom pants are always too long and the waist too large. And for tall, thin women on whom clothing is consistently, unintentionally cropped.
Standard size charts assume that as we get curvier, we get taller. ROUCHA doesn't make this assumption and offers clothing in varied lengths and widths. (View ROUCHA Size Chart)
I was educated in design, craftsmanship and textiles from fashion’s best. However, my understanding of fit is informed by the thousands of hours spent in the fitting rooms of my retail stores styling women of all shapes and sizes. What I've attempted to create is a fashion collection that's both thoughtful and inspired, and that contributes to the current conversation challenging singular, universal beauty standards.
I look forward to hearing your feedback and meeting as many of you as possible.
All my best,
Jill Wenger
Founder
Roucha
