six femme presenting individuals, four wearing looks inspired by the four elements, and two artists

In November 2024, I was given the opportunity to participate in the Birdhouse Artisan Fashion Show, a night showcasing the intersection between fine art and fashion. For the show, I teamed up with 7 other artists to create a collaborative group called Charmed. The other artists in Charmed ranged from fellow fiber artists to jewelers and stained glass artists.

Together, Charmed created four looks inspired by the four elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. The collection aims to use Japanese Fruits Mag aesthetics, edgy and extreme layering, with bold colors and silhouettes to bring our vision to life.

two women wearing fashion looks inspired by the elements water and air

I assisted in creating two looks — water and air. For both looks, I wanted to layer sheer fabric over quilted and appliqued base garments. Most of my sewing these days is all about VOLUME. I accentuate parts of the body that society tells us to hide. Rather than making myself and my models look smaller and more petite, I add to the grandiosity of the female form.

In addition to playing with proportions, my works are often overly feminine — I joke often that my target demographic seems to be children rather than adults. My shapes toy with the transition from girlhood to womanhood; I believe that every woman still has that little girl inside of them, excited to play dress-up, and my sewing reflects that belief.

woman kneeling with skirt pooling around her, resembling a jellyfish

For the water look, I created the sheer outer dress, as well as the three-quarter sleeve shirt underneath. When designing the dress, I wanted to play with different shades of blue and textures of fabric to mimic the flow of a winding river or a waving ocean. The top two layers of the dress are from a thrifted poly chiffon, purchased in Missoula, MT. The middle layer and sleeves are a glittery tulle fabric from my local Joann Fabrics, and the ruffles are a stiffer organza-esque opalescent purple.

girl with whimsical makeup wearing a patchwork quilted fish shirt

For the fish shirt, I used thrifted scrap quilting fabric to assemble the fish, creating a basic quilt block and adding colorful applique on top of it to resemble a cutthroat trout. The 3/4 sleeve top is vintage The Limited, thrifted in Bozeman, MT.

white woman wearing sheer pink peplum shirt, a butterfly tube top, and layers of skirts.

For the air look, I used pink poly organza to create the pink peplum top. My biggest struggle with this look as making it small enough so that it didn’t slide off the model, but not too tight because the fabric had no stretch. I left the back of the peplum open, adding a sexyness to the playful silhouette of the top. The buttons are vintage pink buttons from my button collection.

white woman wearing a pink peplum top, butterfly tube top, big charm necklace, and stained glass glasses

Underneath the pink peplum top is the butterfly tube top. It was pretty simple to create — I made a basic tube top from thrifted white stretch fabric that has been in my stash for years. The butterfly’s shape came from the charm necklace associated with the look: Josie of Cowgirls Hands created an incredible charm necklace from recycled silver and sourced charms. The butterfly charm reminded us of the early 90’s, and we wanted that shape to be present on the top. The butterfly applique was created using scrap fleece fabric from my hat collection.

All-in-all, it was an honor to collaborate with such talented artists. If you’re interested in learning more about the looks, visit Charmed’s instagram page.