Taryn's Design Diary

I spent a lot of time these past few weeks agonizing over the conception of Taryn Zhang International’s Chinese name. Finally, I’m using the name my mother came up with: 妲婨國際公司.

The brand will be known as 妲婨 (pronounced: dá lún), a transliteration of “Taryn,” and the company 妲婨國際公司 (pronounced: dá lún guó jì gōng sī; simplified Chinese: 妲婨国际公司), or “Taryn International Company.”

妲 (pronounced: dá) is reminiscent of 妲己 (pronounced: da ji; English: Daji), a concubine of the last Shang emperor, and who eventually became empress of the Shang Dynasty. History and a misogynist culture have characterized this woman as a villainess. Some renderings depict her as a sorceress, or an other-worldly witch with magical powers.

It is said that Daji corrupted the emperor by seducing him to squander the nation’s resources for her extravagant pleasures. Folklore depicts her as a woman aroused by the torture of innocents, and the sole cause of the downfall of a dynasty. She ate the eyeballs of the people she tortured, engaged in debauchery, was really a nine-tailed fox demon disguised as a woman—oh, the horrific tall tales are endless.

Daji is in many respects China’s version of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, only Daji is painted even more sinister and conniving and sadistic. Like Helen of Troy, Daji is a legendary beauty.

What’s more, an interesting detail in her story is rarely included in popular narratives: In retribution for her father’s murder, Daji plotted her revenge by seducing the emperor into marrying her, becoming empress and ultimately killing her husband, Emperor Zhao. Daji was born into nobility. Her father was a duke. In Emperor Zhao’s assent to the throne, he murdered Daji’s father, the duke. Heartbroken and evidently scarred for life, Daji sought vengeance against Emperor Zhao. From there, she went from concubine to empress to legend.

I am convinced that Daji was unfairly portrayed, and was never the villainess that the Chinese characterize her to be. She was simply a scapegoat, the easiest target for blaming the fall of the Shang dynasty on. Most likely, Daji was a woman too strong and confident for the comfort of her society. She must have intimidated her peers with her power and beauty. Today, we still remain unforgiving of alluring, authoritative women; it had to be tenfold worse in the times of Daji.

Although 婨 (pronounced: lún) is not a frequently-used word in the modern Chinese lexicon, it was used in ancient times as a female name. Also, the word holds as its root 侖 (also pronounced: lún), a word that connotes logical reasoning, discourse and intellect. Juxtaposed with the root 女 (pronounced: nŭ), which means woman, 婨 is the perfect exemplification of Taryn Zhang’s ideology.

The fact my mother is the one who came up with the name makes 妲婨 personally significant. 妲婨 is truly a feminist and feminine brand.

I have never been good at math, and that is putting it mildly. I actively sought out paths that would take me as far from math as possible. It worked, for a while, but now boom. Here it is. Math. In purse-making. Or more specifically, in pattern-making.

For instance, geometry. (I think it’s geometry…that’s how bad my math is…I don’t even know what form of math the math is called.)

A few nights ago before bed, I read “The Library of Babel” again (by Jorge Luis Borges) and then dreamt of hexagons. I woke up the next morning with a determination to make a hexagonal handbag.

I quickly realized a hexagonal handbag would look quite stupid, so I settled for a hexagon-inspired handbag. Either way, the pattern would need to start with a hexagon, and I couldn’t for the life of me draw a regular hexagon.

Then junior high geometry rose up from the purlieus of my memory and went “Boo.” Internal angles…120 degrees.. total 720 degrees…something about diametrically opposite vertices…and I would have to buy a compass. My father used to have a set, yes a set of stainless steel compasses that came in a solid wood and velvet box. I had thought to myself, wow, dorkus maximus, but now the idea of owning a set of stainless steel compasses that come in a solid wood and velvet box quite tickles me.

Calculating proportions, circumferences, diameters, all these I have had to do to make the purse patterns; allocations and costing sheets, figuring out yardage of fabric required for the patterns, and even foolishly converting inches to centimeters before finding an online calculator that does it for you. Math is far more pervasive in the arts than I’m comfortable with. On one side of my work table, there’s the sewing machine and mounds of fabric. On the other side, there’s a ruler, protractor, calculator, graph paper, and now I need to add a compass to that collection of stuff I thought I would never use again after I left high school.

I don’t know how other designers do it. Pattern-making is a royal [EXPLETIVES REDACTED]. But it’s the only way to keep costs down, to do it myself. I’ve already established that I can’t realistically sew and make the purses myself and sell them. My sewing skills are somewhere at the level of my math skills. See earlier blog posts and photos for proof of that. So I really, really want to at the very least be able to provide the patterns, and not hire a pattern-maker. That means I’ve gotta sharpen up those math skills. Let the good times roll.

Please note that the following handbags represent first prototypes and serious blunders. This blog documents our trials and errors and tracks our progress from inexperienced start-up to launching the Taryn Zhang brand. Please bear that in mind as you look through these photos and illustrations.

This was supposed to be The Associate, before I messed up the would-be handles. So here is yet another clutch. I finished it this  morning. For now I’m calling it the Not-Associate. It’s the unwanted lovechild between The Peripatetic and what I was attempting to make.

See Work-in-Progress: The Associate, link; See also Work-in-Progress: The Associate, cont’d., link.

Arrrgh.

Friday after work, I got home, mixed myself a mint julep (see above, top left image), and got to sewing. Since I haven’t yet figured out how to sew the edges together with the machine, I do it by hand. What’s worse, the leather material is so thick, I need pliers to pull the needle through (see above, bottom right image).

This afternoon, Hubby and I went to the mall (to buy a MAC foundation brush, which I’ve been needing). I took the clutch-thing with me, The Not-Associate, giving it a test run. I like it; it’s alright. I’m still not liking the whole clutch concept though. Handbags should really come with handles.

Please note that the following handbags represent first prototypes and serious blunders. This blog documents our trials and errors and tracks our progress from inexperienced start-up to launching the Taryn Zhang brand. Please bear that in mind as you look through these photos and illustrations.

The shoulder straps idea isn’t working out on The Associate. The straps look like crap. This one is going to have to be another clutch. In the future, I’m going to attempt leather braided straps, braiding 4 to 6 thin leather cords together instead of these thick bands.

Other than wasting three dollars worth of synthetic croc leather, the going is good. The stitches I’m doing by hand are getting straighter, more even, and the stitches I do by machine don’t bunch up; I’ve got the tension and pacing down, finally.

By the way, pins cannot be overestimated. I’m too cheap to buy pins, so these came from the collared shirts that my husband buys. The shirts are always pinned together. I’ve been saving them for my sewing uses.

Almost done. I wish I didn’t have such a busy and demanding day job. The purse-making gig would be a lot more efficient if I didn’t have to stop-and-go, stop-and-go. In sum, though, I’m super-thrilled that my lines are getting straighter.

See Work-in-Progress: The Associate, link.

Please note that the following handbags represent first prototypes and serious blunders. This blog documents our trials and errors and tracks our progress from inexperienced start-up to launching the Taryn Zhang brand. Please bear that in mind as you look through these photos and illustrations.

I’ve been using The Peripatetic I made, and while it complemented most non-black business-casual outfits I wore, the lack of handles made it a great pain when I went grocery shopping after work. Thus I determined that the next handbag I made needed to have handles. This one I’m working on, illustrated above, is called The Associate.

The matching purse organizer idea worked out really well, however, so I kept it in mind when making this second handbag. This one is a derivative of The Peripatetic, keeping the same rectangle template and wrap-around zipper. But I took out the I Ching hexagram idea from The First Peripatetic and kept it simple. See below pics.

So in lieu of the I Ching hexagram design, I sewed on a front pocket. The pocket works out better anyway, because when using The First Peripatetic, I found it annoying to have to unzip it every time I needed something that I frequently used or preferred to have easily accessible, like my phone or business cards.

The beige zipper on the purse organizer doesn’t match because I forgot to buy small black zippers when I went to the fabric store. The beige one was the only one I had at home. Bleh.