Who is Mrs. Depew, anyways?

I recently posted to the Vintage Sewing Pattern Nerd Facebook group introducing myself as admin to our newer members. And it got me thinking... I have had the privilege of meeting some of you here in person, some of us have interacted over the years through my website or blog, but a few of you might not know much about me outside of the pretty patterns I work with.

So just in case you've ever wondered... "Who is Mrs. Depew?", this is for you :)

My start:

As a homeschooled kid, I grew up in my mother's antique shop. When we weren't working on our lesson books, my sister and I were working for my mother, helping her run the shop, and learning how to hunt for and restore beautiful and rare antique clothing pieces that were her unique specialty.

Over many wonderful years, Mama taught me a thousand things about her business, but looking back, her lessons were more about love than anything else. She loved her work in a way that so few of us ever truly get to experience, and her passion was very contagious.

From her, I learned that the history of women was often told through the hand-made treasures that they left behind.

There is nothing quite like opening an antique hope chest left untouched for decades, and finding it filled with embroidered linens, meticulously stitched wedding gowns, and monogrammed baby things, with the stories of the women who made them shimmering beneath the surface of each loving stitch. The love is hard to mistake in these carefully preserved items that can hold a family's history.

One of my earliest memories is of my mother carefully pulling a beautiful Victorian ladies' magazine out of a box. It was stunning, and I remember the look of awe on her face as she leaned towards me to give me a better look. As she carefully opened the first page, she explained to me how treasures like that should always be treated with care and reverence because you never knew when you were handling the last existing copy of anything. As we opened the second page, the magazine started crumbling in her hands, almost as if to emphasize her point. I remember how sad we both felt, watching a treasure crumble to nothing.

The same thing happened to me many years later with a rare antique sewing pattern when I tried to gently open the crumbling envelope. I was devastated in a way I wouldn't have expected and after I shed some very confused tears, I collected myself and decided "This simply will not do." At the time, I had a small Etsy shop selling vintage patterns while I finished my first degree.

Not long after, my husband's military career required us to move to an assignment in Norway and while there, it was impossible for me to pursue my original career plan.

So instead, I followed my passion and started my own company. My mother had sent me a box of antique patterns not long after we moved overseas (her marvelous version of a care package, one of many over those 4 years in Norway) and I started carefully tracing copies of the first few and studying archival safe paper preservation. Little by little, my pattern reproduction business came into being.

17 years later, Mrs. Depew Vintage LLC. is still dedicated to preserving the history of hand-made garments by saving the patterns that made them so that the next generation can continue to learn from them as we have. Luckily, I have been able to bring my company everywhere that the military has moved us!

My husband once told me, "I'm so glad that you love what you do. One of us should, and I don't care how much money you make. We can't put a price on how happy you look working in your studio every day."

And he's right, that wonderful man of mine. In my studio, reverently handling a rare sewing pattern, I feel close to my mother - the last of her kind and now also gone. I feel joy while I work, and that is truly priceless. That is why I do what I do.
I find purpose and fulfilment protecting history each day, and I know that my mother would be proud.

p.s.

Mr. Depew will retire from the military in a few months and when he does, he will be joining me in the studio each day. His time in the military has been rough at times, and I know he will be glad for a change of pace. He tells me he is looking forward to studying pattern drafting and learning how to tailor his own vintage menswear!