About Karolyn.
Karolyn Kiisel is the best-selling author of Draping: The Complete Course. Her second book, Advanced Creative Draping, has just been released by Hachette/Laurence King Publishing.
K Kiisel’s fashion collections have been sold at fine retailers internationally, appeared on the red carpet, and graced the cover of Women’s Wear Daily. Her costume designs have appeared on screen and stage.
She currently teaches at the LA City Theater Academy and previously taught for 22 years in the Fashion Department at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles.
My first book for Laurence King Publishing, Draping: The Complete Course, includes draping projects from movie costumes, such as Zendaya seen here, pop culture, historical clothing and famous artworks.
My illustration for the Willow Tree, for the original opera, The Tree, by Mesopotamian Opera Company.
Looking out my fire escape from my downtown Los Angeles, K KIISEL STUDIOS, I get a perfect view of City Hall.
My second book for Laurence King Publishing, Advanced Creative Draping, includes a chapter on draping with embellishments. Here, I am reviewing the archives at Chanel’s iconic embroidery atelier, Maison Lesage, in preparation for our collaborative project.
My Jacaranda dress collection was embellished with Solstiss beaded laces and was worn by many celebrities. Seen here, Jessica Simpson, who wore it on David Letterman, and appeared on the cover of People Magazine.
While teaching Senior Collections at Otis College of Art and Design, we did two projects with Cirque du Soleil.
My costumes for the opera, Spell of Tradition, onstage at the Ebell Club in Highland Park, Los Angeles. An original opera by Peter Wing Healey of the Mesopotamian Opera Company.
My first feature film costume design job, Goin' All the Way, — a silly romantic teen comedy. I learned a lot dressing all the extras for the prom scene in 50’s square dance costumes!
My childrenswear collection, Little Folk Wear, included a collection of modern, traditional ethnic clothing, and was sold to pre-schools as multi-cultural education materials.
Legendary London photographer, Robert Barber did a photo shoot with me in a warehouse in downtown LA for my Kiiselwares Intimate Apparel collection.
Tara West, Spa-Meditationwear was inspired by ancient cuts like the burnoose, toga and kimono. Here, hemp-silk with Cambodian silk tussah trim.
What a thrill to do costumes for a small equity waiver theater in Hollywood with two of my heroes, Gena Rowlands and John Cassavettes.
Exciting moment: one of my Kiiselwares silk lingerie designs on the front page of Womens’ Wear Daily.
In the late 70’s, I was selling my designs to a boutique called “Poor Little Rich Girl” on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, and who should walk in, but Peter Frampton. He loved my patchwork hippie look.
Karolyn’s design aesthetic was shaped by her life in California, as a teenager surfing at Newport Beach and roller skating on the Venice Boardwalk, studying at UCLA and UC Berkeley, to designing kimonos and togas in the Napa Valley, and being immersed in LA’s exciting art and film world.
She created hundreds of costumes for live performances and films in San Francisco and Napa before returning to Los Angeles to work in fashion design. Based in an abandoned, historic hotel in Little Tokyo, she designed mass-market junior sportswear, career dresses, evening wear, and bridal, along with some TV and theater costumes.
A passion for working in silk led her to her first entrepreneurial venture, Kiiselwares Intimate Apparel. The look was casual elegance with a nod to Hollywood glamour. Her highlight was having one of her designs for Bergdorf Goodman on the front cover of Womens’ Wear Daily. After having two daughters in quick succession, she switched gears and began designing a childrenswear line, Little Folk Wear.
She also started teaching fashion design at Otis College of Art and Design doing Senior Collections. The department did collaborations with many of American’s top designers, including Calvin Klein, Badgely Mischka, Isabel Toledo, and many more. The most exciting was doing two projects with Cirque du Soleil, and the very talented and gifted Dominique Lemeiux.
Her next fashion ventures were Jacaranda silk dresses and Tara West Spa and Meditationwear, working with washed silk charmeuse and the gorgeous Solstiss Lace collection.
Karolyn’s mission:
“I want to help women create their own style of sustainability, designing clothes that bring out their best selves. Like a multifaceted gemstone, we are wife, mother, lover, businesswoman, and need clothes that support and enrich us in all our many settings.
We need to rediscover who we are as women and who we have been, revive a dream we may have lost, taste the romance of another era, feel the strength of ourselves and others. We need clothes that help us transform, redefine our energies and connect us with our physical awareness and inner calm.”
The collection was very successful and segued into a beautiful retail store in San Marino, so that she could focus on her writing.
She spent two months in Italy, France, and the UK to prepare for her second book. There, she interviewed many fashion designers and visited their design studios, researching current draping methods and professional practices.
Writing the two books for Laurence King has been a wonderful way for her to share with students and designers all that she has learned in her years of teaching, and in her rich and varied experience in the fashion and costume worlds.
Her K Kiisel Studio, in Downtown Los Angeles is being used as a local workshop/resource for costume and fashion designers.