maude couture was born out of my life-long dream to have my own line. The line is lovingly dedicated to my grandmothers. Maude Lyon Hincher taught me to sew at a very young age. In another life, Maude would have been a fashion designer herself, but in hers she was a devoted wife and mother. She made absolutely everything in her home (beautiful)—from biscuits to blankets to blouses. She was best known in our family for her amazing quilts, but she is best remembered by my aunts for making them the dresses of their dreams. To me, she will always be the one who inspired my love of crafts, handwork and construction with her endless patience. Dorothy Rosenwinkle Mitchell, known simply as “
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I grew up in the woods on an island just south of Beaufort, SC called Lady's Island. My neighbors were a family cemetery on one side and my cousins (through miles of trails floating down the salt-water creek) on the other. My sister, brother and I did not have cable, Nintendo or a nanny. We had our imagination and enough space to explore it.
Right away, I was a killer of curtains, slips, tablecloths and anything else I could fashion into dresses for my dolls and me. I made hats out of magnolia leaves, necklaces out of pennies, boats (and assorted other transportation devices) with my brother and constant, creative messes for my poor mother. Trapped in my childhood imagination, the glamour of one grandmother met the ingenuity of the other and "maude" was born.
After going to "a real college" and getting "a real degree" like my savvy parents told me to do, I still wanted to be a fashion designer. Three days after I graduated from the College of Charleston with by B.S. in Business and a concentration in Intermodal Transportation, I moved to New York City to pursue my dream. With the ceaseless cheerleading of my sister, I quickly established myself as New Yorker, took a job as a paralegal and set up residence in Brooklyn. Practical girl that I am, I lived up there to establish in-state (tuition) status before applying to the Fashion Institute of Technology and parsons. I was accepted to both, and after agonizing over the decision, I flourished at F.I.T.
I cherished every single, sleepless, grueling second there. It was the toughest, most demanding two years of my life and I ate up every crumb F.I.T. dropped. I learned to create clothes and hats (from more traditional materials than those available in my childhood) and my tailoring specialization molded me into the meticulous, and thankfully patient, couture designer I have become. I graduated Summa Cum Laude in Fashion Design with a Tailoring Specialization, a Millinery certification, and some woodworking and furniture restoration classes to boot. After my five-year fantasy in New York, I moved back to the South and happily became Caroline (Mitchell Hincher) Baker.
In Charleston, I quickly found work at LulaKate. As the sole employee, I gained invaluable experience through expanding the ready-to-wear line and launching LulaKate Bridal with the owner, Katherine Mullins McDonald. Three years and one (perfect) baby girl later, I am delighted to be forging ahead in pursuit of my childhood dream... maude couture is what I sifted out of the funnel that I have poured my life into.
