Ileana's comments about this piece:

On April, 2003, at the PACC of Greater Philadelphia meeting Yoko Lewisgave a great presentation on antique Japanese kimonos. They brought a few obis and different old Japanese fabrics to show us. I saw a beautiful obi piece with a Phoenix bird flying over a Japanese garden, and had to buy it.

For several months I didn't dare "destroy" the gorgeous obi by cutting it to make a vest which I had in mind, until finally, I told to myself to start with as small of a piece possible and save the rest. This is how I've started making the upper front and back of the jacket. I treasured this fabric so much that I didn't want to throw away anything, so I kept all remaining pieces after cutting to use them for the rest of the jacket.

The bottom and the sleeves of this jacket are made by using appliqué and free motion techniques on silk moiré fabric with gold metallic thread.

To complete my design I had to recreate some flowers, leaves and water, by copying the originals ones on satin. I had only one full bird piece which I appliquéd on front right bottom. The other two, I created with different small left over pieces which I assembled like a puzzle. This process inspired the jacket's name, "Phoenix rebirth". Ileana.

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