When Hattie Rensberry and Elise Hillbrand attended the Carbondale Arts Fashion Show last year, they didn’t know it would spark the creation of their first fashion line, “Hillberry.”
“Elise and I are really great friends and we have the unfortunate trait as artists of wanting to try new things often…we went to the show last year together and said ‘Wow, I’d really love to do that someday,’” Rensberry said. “We went our separate ways for a few months and then came back together to see each other for a couple of beers, and said, ‘Oh wow, that’s coming up. That’d be funny if we did that.’
“We called each other’s bluff and it turns out we weren’t bluffing,” she added. “We decided that it was worth a shot.”
Their locally created line will be featured in the 15th Annual Carbondale Arts Fashion Show, “Step Right Up,” — which blends circus-inspired design with a variety of artistic interpretations.
“Hillberry” gives classic circus performers a Western makeover.
“We both grew up in the valley and have an affinity for Western fashion,” Hillbrand said. “This year’s theme is ‘circus’ for the actual fashion show, so we decided to combine Western tropes and characters that you see in old Western films with circus tropes.”
Hillbrand and Rensberry dug into the inspiration behind the aesthetics of circus performers and cowboys, tracing their roots back to the late 1800s and mid-1900s. Both were influenced by military uniforms, dance uniforms and common work wear, according to Rensberry.
“I did a little bit of research into what we can expect from both of those genres, because I think a lot of people look at Western and they look at the circus, and they go, ‘Oh, those aren’t very close at all,’” Rensberry said. “In fact, they’re inspired from the same place.”
Each of the nine looks in “Hillberry” combines the role of a circus performer with classic Western characters: a ringmaster is meshed with a cowboy, a ballerina is also a dance hall girl, an outlaw becomes a clown, and a bounty hunter doubles as a fire eater.
“One of the most common characters in cowboy cinema is the outlaw, and in a lot of cases, he can be either dastardly or he can (be) a little bit dashing, or he can (be) childish and petulant,” Rensberry said. “I had this particular thought in my head of a really specific portrait taken at one point in the life of Billy the Kid, where he just looks like a child…and I thought about how interesting it would be to look at melding the archetype of the child outlaw and the clown.
“It is a little bit funny, it is a little bit of a comedic character in some Westerns, and it is very strange to have that dichotomy of someone being so against what the law stands for and also not being an authority themselves,” she added.
The two friends began the process by setting a timer and sketching what each envisioned their final designs to look like. Then they combined the looks, adding historical shapes and intentional color palettes that embodied the energy of each piece.
Rensberry and Hillbrand both took the project as an opportunity to experiment with new mediums and techniques. Rensberry even learned how to crochet lace by hand and design patterns for knitted pieces.
“One of the things that I really wanted to include, because it was an aspect of Victorian-era clothing and has been an aspect of handmade clothing for a very long time, is hand-knitted and hand-crocheted lace items,” Rensberry said. “For me that was really important, and Elise has indulged me with that, so those will be featured on a multitude of different outfits throughout the line.”
The ringmaster will sport a crocheted hem, and the ballerina a hand-knitted accent choker.
Hillbrand’s favorite piece so far is a wool tunic with a hand-painted accent inspired by flames on the back. The tunic will be worn by the bounty hunter/fire eater.
“I’ll be hand painting the flames, and my background is in 2D (art): drawing, painting, print making, that kind of stuff,” Hillbrand said. “So that’s the intersection of where my interests lie.
“I also feel like the look of the piece is kind of fun,” she added. “I’m working on it from start to finish, so it’s like my little baby of the show.”
Everything used to create the “Hillberry” line was sourced from thrift stores, donations, trash or craft supplies already owned by the artists. The materials were also acquired from down valley.
“We are both down valley gals, born and raised,” Rensberry said. “For us, it was really important, especially when choosing our approach to this theme, to acknowledge that and to utilize these materials from our own communities that we grew up in.”
For her, creating the fashion line has been a satisfying form of artistic resistance.
“In the world of AI art and the devaluation of handmade goods — specifically items that are often attributed to women, like handmade lace or patchwork, or painting on fabric — it was really special to get to work on a project like this with my friend, and use materials from the places where we grew up and honor that Western flair that I think Silt and Rifle really have…” Rensberry said.
“As we see some people looking at different forms of art as if they’re not really worth their time, or finding ways to devalue them further, it’s nice to be counter to that crushing experience and to be part of the movement that pushes back,” she later added.