Fashion Designer Nelli Millard New Fashion Trend

Sewing since she was 10, Russian-born seamstress now runs a business in Bend

Nelli Millard, born and raised in Russia, has transported her background and skills to the High Desert, where she operates an alteration and custom clothing shop off Greenwood Avenue in Bend.

Sewing By Nelli Millard, owned and operated by fashion designer Millard, 39, offers same- or next-day alteration services, custom clothing creations and cutouts of custom patterns for customers to sew themselves.

Prices range from $14 to hem a pair of design fashion jeans to $800 for an original wedding dress, including materials.

“It’s my passion,” Millard said about designing and creating custom clothing. “I did it a lot in Russia. People here prefer more buying (of clothes), but sometimes you meet people who say, ‘Oh, you do that?’”

Millard designs many kinds of clothing, including original prom and wedding dresses. She sometimes uses fabric that her mother sends to her from Russia and she follows fashion updates in her home country and the U.S.

Millard, from Pyatigorsk, in southwest Russia, started modeling for her mother’s sewing studio at the age of 6.

“She worked all her life,” Millard said about her mother. “She did the same thing. She was my teacher and I followed her all over.”

Millard started sewing when she was 10 and making most of her clothes at age 14.

Two years later, at the age of 16, Millard went to a technical college in Stavropol, also in southwest Russia, and received a four-year degree in clothing design and management.

She continued to work as a teacher at the college in practical sewing and pattern making before working at a sewing and fashion studio in her hometown. While there, she worked as a cutter for custom clothing, conducted first-fittings and was then promoted to manager.

Nelli Millard moved to Brookings and married her husband in 2002. She started her business there and reopened it in Bend in 2006 after they moved to Central Oregon for quality of life.

“I fell in love with Bend,” Millard said. “It’s very similar to my town — the climate a little bit and it is a resort. I grew up in a resort.”

Millard has noticed differences since the recession started. Many of her clients like fashion models, celebrity, actress - now request alteration and repair of old and casual clothing.

“It’s the economy,” Millard said. “I had part of the clientele that are fixing suits for new jobs, but now the economy has slowed down and I feel it.”

Millard has plans to expand the design portion of her business. She met Dru Broekemeier last fall, a clothing designer from Los Angeles who now lives in Bend, and the two have started NelliDru Design. Their clothing will debut this fall at the Portland Fashion Week and at a fashion trade show in Los Angeles. The events allow clothing designers to showcase their latest trends to retail buyers in the fashion industry.

Both women design the clothing and Broekemeier focuses on marketing, while Millard creates the patterns and first samples.

At her Bend business, Millard is able to focus on expedient repair service and creative custom clothing due to her longtime background in the industry.

“That’s what I’m able to do,” Millard said, “because I learned it and studied it and experienced it a lot.”

Source: bendbulletin.com