Carambolage
Leveraging the Power of Personal Image
Creating Competitive Edge
“My jacket feels great!...It’s all about fit. The fit makes one look better. Equally important, it makes one feel better. And when one feels better, one presents better.” Davis Riemer, DHR Investment Counsel, Oakland, CA
“My jacket feels great!...It’s all about fit. The fit makes one look better. Equally important, it makes one feel better. And when one feels better, one presents better.” Davis Riemer, DHR Investment Counsel, Oakland, CA
Carambolage - The Butterfly Effect
Master Tailor Julie Browne started patternmaking and sewing at age seventeen in Colombia, South America. Heading south to learn Spanish, she returned a budding tailor and public health advocate. In Colombia, Browne saw a society shine in custom-made clothes. She dedicated the second half of her year abroad to learning tailoring.
Browne's skills leverage the power of personal image to keep focus on, and lend credibility to, a leader’s message. Often unconsciously, wardrobe distractions undermine credibility. Browne's work mitigates that.
Simmon
Julie earned degrees in public health and social welfare from UC Berkeley. She had a career as a bilingual medical social worker when a constellation of events landed her in the hands of Simmon Sethna. In India, Simmon was a couturier (designer of fashionable, high-quality, custom-made clothes) serving ambassadors' wives. She learned industry patternmaking in Paris and was certified in haute couture before coming to the US. Under Simmon, Julie learned the French method of flat patternmaking and haute couture sewing and design skills.
Susan Overton
Susan, one of nine San Francisco The Gap patternmakers, and a graduate of Simmon's course, gave Julie private lessons in custom and industry apparel patternmaking. The focus was on pants, her specialty at the time, and Julie's greatest desire. Susan also taught Julie to knock-off patterns from clients' favorite garments, and to solve fit issues with custom patterns made from clients' measurements and design requests.
Jaime Alberto Rojas Correa
Julie returned multiple times to Medellin, Colombia, to study men's bespoke jacket-making in 1:1 classes with Master Tailor Jaime Rojas.
In 2010, while making the trek from the metro to class, up a treacherously steep mountainside street in the urban jungle neighborhood (Manrique) where Pablo Escobar housed his assassins, Browne found her business name. Barreling down the street toward her, she watched as a bus named CARAMBOLAS thundered by.
Upon learning the meaning of the word - derived from billiards - one action causing a chain reaction of events, she settled on the name (changing it to French for easier pronunciation). It perfectly describes her business mission - helping customers enjoy the effects from their new, positive energy, generated by wearing custom-made clothes that fit and flatter, with unique design elements creating garments previously only existing in their dreams - unavailable off the racks. .
Creating Carambolage
The Butterfly Effect