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HELEN GERRO

Helen Gerro’s women’s wear designs and paintings make a statement, Designer hand painted unique one of a kind designs, weather custom made to order or off the rack one of a kind pieces. Bold full of color hand painted designs by Helen Gerro form fitting long or short and leggy sexy couture dresses, with fun artsy couture head pieces.   My art of fashion is bringing my paintings of art into the fore ground, from painting jeans “your jeans my canvas” to ready to wear, resort wear, dresses to unique wedding dresses.

 “The art of fashion and the Fashion of art” Art Couture hand painted designer dresses; some are postmodern unique one of a kind pieces.  Helen Gerro thought  she could do something different, like paint a dress like a painting so her first 3 dresses are on actual painters canvas,  “a wearable painting” first painted in  in 2005 they are heavy and stiff really too hard to wear so Gerro moved into wearable fabrics silk linens,   that lead her back into doing fashion show’s Helen Gerro gets invited all the time to do show’s in Tampa, St Pete, Sarasota, New York, Miami, Atlanta and Fort Myers.

Fabric painting, it’s different from canvas, fabric is softer some special treatments make it unique looking, canvas is heavy stiff and when stretched on stretcher bars it stable and set.  When I do dresses I first make a designer dress cut the fabric pieces and then I paint the fabric let it dry overnight and then I sew the garment.  So it can take days I can only lay out so many panels of pieces at a time.  Then I press it to heat set it. And I sometimes add Swarovski crystals for sparkle.

Art and fashion together….

This is her profession for several years, “The fashion of art and the art of fashion”. Helen Gerro is self-taught in both art and fashion design. Helen Gerro started designing women’s wear in the early eighties in Minneapolis with doing several fashion shows because people wanted what she wore, and then Gerro moved to the heart of Manhattan worked in the garment district. After 3 years Gerro moved back to Minneapolis in 1984 started her own line which sold to Dayton Hudson, Marshal Fields, Nordstum’s and hundreds of boutiques throughout the US.  As seen in several editorials magazines, such as L.A. Times Mademoiselle Magazine WWD Magazine and fashion seen on Oprah.

Helen Gerro started Painting art in the 80’s, a  gallery owner said, her designer sketches should be paintings, so paint so she did, and she has been painting since and for over 20 years.  Helen Gerro’s style is contemporary bold strong vivid color, her art is inspired from being a women’s wear designer.

Helen was born in 1956 in a small town of 400 in central Minnesota, her mother was a teacher, librarian and a seamstress and dad was a carpenter.  Large family with eight siblings. her mother taught her how to sew when she was 9 years old and some Home Ec and art classes in high school.  For the most part she is self-taught in art and fashion design.

In 2002 her husband and her packed up their van with two cats and drove down to Punta Gorda, Florida.  Her husband’s mother lives here so they wanted to be close to her, visited year’s before and loved the area and thought someday they would move here, it’s been nearly 10 years now in their designer studio boutique & Gallery.