Meet Joan Cooper | Designer and Seamstress

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joan Cooper and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joan, what do you attribute your success to?
I have been successful by building relationships personally with all of my customers, most whom I now consider friends.
When they order from me, it is a collaboration and the customer gets to have direct input on details of his or her garment, which is a rarity in today’s fast fashion climate.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I started this business about nine years ago. I had always loved vintage fashion, which I consider to be timeless. I also used to sew for not only myself, but my two daughters.
People responded well to what I did so naturally it led to me starting to sew for other people. The challenges with fit plagued me early on and have caused me to be a much more skilled seamstress from the mistakes made. Most people have discovered me online, and without fitting them in person, it has forced me to get really good at made to measure, creating garments specifically from their measurements. I also know what styles to avoid.
I have also had great response from my garments being created from vintage tablecloths. So many people want to shop in a more ecological mindset now, and the vintage tablecloth fashions are a great way to do this. Not only are the fabrics from the 1940s and 1950s tablecloths beautiful, but the designs and border prints allow for a really unique garment. It has become popular with many other creative folks as well, so the tablecloths are getting much harder to find, but I keep my eyes open from many sources. And I do have customers that bring me their tablecloths from their collections as well.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I Live in the mountain town of Evergreen Colorado. The natural beauty is unsurpassed. The summers here are glorious, and we have a fabulous deck that I love to entertain on. I would invite my friends to have a home-cooked meal and hand crafted cocktails on my deck, which is filled with flowers and attracts hummingbirds, and other wildlife. It is not uncommon to see elk and deer in our driveway. We also get the occasional fox and bobcat.
There is a gorgeous lake, five minutes from our house, and hiking and mountain biking trails all over the place, practically in our backyard. I would also invite anybody interested to my sewing room, which might be my favorite place to be at any given time!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Well, this is easy, since I named my business after my 2 grandmothers.
Monica, my maternal grandmother was a seamstress and milliner who raised 6 children and still worked, during the Depression.
Veronica was my paternal grandmother. She ran a restaurant in Dubuque, Iowa with all homemade food items and also raised 6 kids during the Depression.
Both women were inspiring to me. I’m the J in the middle.

Instagram: @monicajveronica@gmail.com

Facebook: Monica J Veronica Designs

Image Credits
Joan Cooper