DRESSMAKERS Custom clothes fit body and personality

Their grandmother instilled in them the love of making beautiful clothes.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Like the wand-waving fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty, the five Collado sisters stitch their magic in the back of a pink duplex in northwest Miami.
Olga, Omaira, Dalia, Oneida and Orfelina -- the "O" pattern in their names interrupted only by their parents' fleeting certainty of a boy the third time -- are gifted modistas, dressmakers who craft custom clothes.
"Our grandmother had a treasure chest of remnants in her house, and she let us experiment and make clothes for our dolls. She instilled in us the love of making beautiful clothes," says Omaira, 66, anointed "la directora de la orquesta," director of the well-orchestrated Collado Sisters Couture. The Collado sisters came to Miami from Cuba in 1961 and 1965.
A few miles south of the sisters' house, in an elegant storefront in Coral Gables, Fla., the same Old World dress-making tradition takes on haute hues at the hands of couturier Rene Ruiz.
The 38-year-old's domain are silky, sexy, fabulous fabrics that Ruiz turns into body-perfect clothes for beautiful people who get their going-out clothes tailor-made and adore his exclusive designs.
His up-and-coming couture is inspired by the fashion of old Hollywood movies, by treasured society magazines from 1950s Havana when the city was a fashionable hot spot -- and by his Cuban mother, who turned whatever she wore into a fashion statement, even during times of severe shortages.
Superb seamstresses
Step into South Florida's culture of modistas, the dress-making tradition prevalent in Old Cuba, Latin America, and still strong in the tight-knit social circles of Puerto Rico.
The tradition of seamstresses and tailors who make clothes the old-fashioned way -- to exact body measurements, and for those who can afford it, in one-of-a-kind designs -- dates back centuries, way before department stores, to a time when haute couture turned Paris into the fashion capital of the world.
It was transplanted to South Florida with the Cuban exile, and despite the prevailing ready-made mainstream culture, it endures in a city not as sophisticated when it comes to the high (and some would say, superficial) glitz of New York, Chicago or San Francisco, but a place that is steeped in traditions from somewhere, and perhaps, run deeper and are more attached to the heart.
"My mother introduced me to the tradition of getting my clothes made when I was a little girl, and I have never stopped doing it," says Cuban-American Carmen Rosa Marrero, an administrator at a Miami law firm who gets pantsuit ensembles of impeccable fit for the office and hand-stitched gowns for galas and weddings from the Collado sisters.
Latin American influence
Fueling a fresh interest in high fashion is the explosion of Latin American cultures -- like the current wave of affluent Venezuelans with a couture tradition.
"The Latin American influence is a very important factor here, but there's also a worldwide trend right now" of people wanting to get their clothes tailor-made, says Mayda Cisneros, a designer with a 9 1/2-year-old atelier on Giralda Avenue in Coral Gables. "Little ateliers like mine are popping up all over Paris."
For those who can afford couture, it's a passion.
"It's addicting," says publicist Shari Anne Liu, who walked into Ruiz's shop six years ago and has been getting her party and work clothes made by him ever since. "Here, I get the dress I want and the perfect fit, and you can't beat the personal attention."
The designer, who is showing a hot pink dress he made for Liu that enhances her hips with an orange band and shows off her generous breasts with a plunging neck, replies, "If I ever make anything remotely similar for someone else, she'll kill me."
Enduring relationships
Marrero has the same devotion to the Collado sisters. She's had her clothes made with them the last 10 years.
"They know how to interpret my body, my tastes," Marrero says. "I have complete confidence that they will make me something very special that no one else will have."
That's the main reason women pay from $1,500 to $3,000 for a custom-made gown, says modista Yasmine Gonzalez, known for her gorgeously embroidered jackets.
But exclusivity is not all that brings Marrero to this warm house-atelier packed with memories of Cuba and exile, like the picture of the Sacred Heart that used to hang in the family house in Cardenas or the anniversary portrait of the sisters and their parents. The house/work space is shared by another little family -- three Pomeranians: Chiqui and Julieta and their son, Shorty.
"You get a very special positive energy when you come here," Marrero says.
And you get Cuban coffee in dainty cups.
"The charm is in the details," Marrero adds.