L.A. designer uses scissors, castoffs to reshape clothes and tees
By Carley Dryden, Los Angeles Daily News
Fashion stylist Barbra Horowitz had the vintage lavender dress she’s wearing shortened just a day earlier. Her tall suede Jimmy Choo boots, proudly snagged off eBay, were dyed from taupe to charcoal gray earlier this year.
“I’m clever, not crafty,” Horowitz explains as she snatches up some shears and tears into a plain black T-shirt stretched across a small table.
In Los Angeles, where stylists such as Rachel Zoe are as idolized as the A-listers they ready for the red carpet, it’s refreshing to find a “stylist for everybody.”
On this day, Horowitz, author of the new book “Closet Control: The Ultimate Guide to Revitalizing your Wardrobe and Revolutionizing the Way You Store It,” is hosting one of her “tee parties” at Nordstrom in The Grove shopping center. At these appearances, Horowitz cuts up T-shirts on the spot and transforms them into custom-made masterpieces.
In less than five minutes, another funky scarf or T-shirt is completed, one of 3,000 she has made over the past six years.
After eight years working as a modeling agent with clients such as Charlize Theron and Shannon Elizabeth, Horowitz followed her passion for fashion after gaining inspiration from costume designer Wendy Shechter, who was working with Britney Spears on the film “Crossroads.”
Horowitz planned to sew up the side of a one-armed top she made to wear to a restaurant opening with Shechter, but the costumer instead cut holes down the side of the top and laced it up with the extra fabric.
Horowitz was forever changed.
The next day she cut up all of her T-shirts as creatively as she could. Spears bought the first three tops, launching Rigged Tee Shirt Couture, Horowitz’s line of funky tees.
“I’m not easily star struck. I was more flattered that the costume designer was impressed than I was about Britney,” Horowitz says.
Soon Rigged Tees were in boutiques and high-end L.A. stores such as Fred Segal, and her “tee parties” materialized shortly thereafter.
For Horowitz, cutting up T-shirts for private and corporate clients may bring in some extra cash, but she discovered her true niche the day in 2004 that her cousin, Betsy, asked her to rework a mangled closet.
After weeding through Betsy’s clothes, remaking several pieces and helping her shop for new ones, Horowitz’s career path was decided.
“I say, ‘Be the architect of your own closet.’ We all know how to dress boring. There should be no rules, just balance,” she says of her talent of rotating and reinventing a wardrobe.
Actress Anika Poitier, Sidney Poitier’s daughter, was her first paid client, but now anyone can contact Horowitz for “Closet Therapy,” a private session of purging, reworking and altering a closet at home.
Evidenced by her attire, Horowitz is a huge proponent of the green movement, becoming more resourceful by revamping clothes headed to the trash bin.
“If cropped pants are in fashion, go to your closet and cut up those trousers you never wear,” she says. “Once you’re over it, do stuff to it. If you just let go and dye it, you may get something better than you imagined.”
Horowitz, who loves to second-hand shop and purchase designer duds off eBay, calls her personal style “flea market eclectic.” Some of her favorite items are Forever 21, Target and H&M pieces she’s collected and remade, as well as older items she’s dyed.
“I’m not going to be the girl carrying the Gucci bag,” she says. “I don’t want to be branded by someone else. I have my own opinion.”
Horowitz is praised for “unsuiting” affluent bankers and revolutionizing the wardrobes of A- and B-list celebs, housewives and recent divorcees.
“A lot of my clients have just had a big shift internally and I get invited along with them,” she says.
When Horowitz scopes out a closet, she works with what’s there, advising the client on what to toss, alter, dye, sew or shrink.
“I’m not a fashion snob, I’m a fit snob,” she says.
After one session, even the smallest wardrobe will produce 40 to 50 new outfits, which are then photographed so the client can easily pick out what to wear daily.
In her book “Closet Control,” Horowitz offers tips on purging, selling online and buying new clothes; patterns for customizing and altering shirts; and secrets from her years as a stylist.
“Hey, if you get one thing out of the book, then it’s worth the $22.95,” she says.
Extracted from Pittsburg Post Gazette, Dec 31st 2007
Source URL : http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07365/845536-51.stm
By Carley Dryden, Los Angeles Daily News