Passion For Fashion: Designer Spotlight, Madeline Grudens

“It’s a beautiful thing when a passion and a career come together.”

This reigns true for Madeline Grudens, who has been passionate about fashion since a very young age. She now owns her own fashion boutique, with her mother, where she sells her own line of clothing, jewelry, handbags, and accessories. At the boutique, Geraci Condello, Madeline and her mother design and produce both ready-to-wear and custom garments.

Recently, Madeline has begun mentoring 10 year-old Brielle Caro in various aspects of fashion design and production. As part of this apprenticeship, Brielle visits the boutique twice a week to work on her designs which will be featured in a fundraising fashion show in September to benefit charity.

I had the opportunity to speak with Madeline about her passion for fashion and how she pursued her dream of being a fashion designer.

What made you interested in fashion design and pursuing it as a career?

I know that God directed me into it.   I had a dream inside to be a designer from a young age.  I believe God places a dream inside of all of us.  We have to trust Him to bring that dream to life – the bible says that God gives us the desires of our heart and I had a passing thought when I was Brielle’s age, to make clothes.  I loved flipping through the NY Times Fashions of the Times magazine every Sunday to look at the beautiful pictures and photography – that inspired me so much.  Then when I was in high school I took a fashion class and started sketching – I even thought about starting a t-shirt line with a classmate.  I started my first company in the early ninety’s called In Stitches.   I made all kinds of things for people, including home décor items, a gown for my aunt to wear to her son’s wedding, prom/evening dresses, and the dresses for my sister’s bridal party. 

What made you want to open your own store? 

I had been working from home as a photographer/web/graphic/ad designer and started sewing on the side with my mom.  Then one day, out of the blue, my husband and a friend said why don’t you open a store.   I wasn’t thinking about it at all, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t an appealing thought to be alone in a store, but my mom came to work with me and now I’m in my second location.

Why did you decide to name your store Geraci Condello?

I have a soft spot in my heart for orphans and widows.  My great grandmother, Francesca Condello (her married name was Geraci, but she used Condello for her business and called herself Madame Condello) was widowed early and left with five children to care for alone.  She had to put the older three with family and the younger two (my grandmother Anna Geraci and her twin brother Eddie) into an orphanage until she was able to provide for her family.  She was a dress designer and seamstress and made custom clothing for women to support herself until she could get her family back.  My grandmother, who lived with our family for many years after my grandfather passed, was very much affected by it.  I know it left a  deep emotional scar and so I named it after them and as such a percentage of my sales goes to various orphanages and children’s and widow’s ministries. 

How did you develop this apprenticeship with Brielle?

Brielle’s mom walked into my store one day and was interested in getting some of her daughter’s designs brought to life.  Before I met with Brielle, I felt to offer her an apprenticeship.  I think that making an investment in someone else’s livelihood and success is so important.  It’s the way things were done years ago, without the financial burden of college - you learned a trade, and by the time you were old enough for college – even before that it some cases, you were highly skilled and could go out on your own.  I told Brielle from the beginning that sometimes we do things in life to find out if we really want that and sometimes we find out that it’s not what we really want.  Me and my mom both think she has tremendous talent and potential.  My husband made a comment that “if she’s this good now, imagine what she’ll be like when she gets older.”

Which aspects of fashion design have you been teaching Brielle?

So far I’ve introduced her to draping fabric on a dress form to create a 2 dimensional pattern; flat pattern drafting from measurements; basic straight stitch and zig zag sewing; how to use a serger to finish seams and hems; sketching with a croquis figure to get the shape of the garment on a fashion figure; fabric selection and a small introduction to costing considerations; cutting a garment with a rotary scissor; embroidery design and digitizing; computerized embroidery where she digitized her first design and embroidered it out onto fabric; stone setting/embellishment. She also hand painted a top/skirt that she designed and sewed.

What do you look forward to in the future for your business and designs?

I would really like to be able to design all of the clothing, jewelry, handbags and accessories that I have rolling around in my head and to employ very highly skilled craftspeople to bring my visions to life.  I would like to help people come to know the love of God and His faithfulness to bring our dreams (and designs) to life.