OFM had the pleasure of chatting with Julianna (the owner, brains, and back of Julianna’s Wardrobe) after she designed an outfit for our photo shoot in last month’s edition, Home Sweet Homo.
During our conversation, she shared how her passion in sewing and design started. Self-taught at the age of eight, she found herself pulled into fashion via the world of fantasy stories and the icon herself, Barbie.
“I was eight years old and I loved Barbie. And I wanted to make clothes for barbie. Cinderella was my favorite Disney film because the mice and the birds made her dress…but I wanted to learn to sew and both of my grandmothers sewed but they didn’t live anywhere near me. My mom had a sewing machine but she didn’t really sew. So I just read her SINGER Sewing machine manual when I was eight years old. And started saving my allowance to buy patterns and scraps fabrics from Cloth World. And I taught myself how to sew starting when I was eight.”
As she began the journey of adolescence, Julianna was drawn to magazine racks filled with the current fashion, from elegance to the neons and acid wash of the 1980s. The time she spent at the Tattered Cover scanning French Vogue, Paris Vogue, and London Vogue meant two things: she was ahead of her time and a plethora of less than ideal social interactions with her peers.
“That movie Pretty and Pink came out in the 90s, And I was like, wait you can take two pieces, two garments, and cut them apart and make new ones? So I was that kid in high school who always had weird stuff, I was always wearing weird stuff, and kids would make fun of me…and I can remember in high school, I had seen bleached jeans in one of the magazines, so I bleached my jeans. My mom was really angry with me. I wore them to school and everyone made fun of me. But within six months, everybody had them.”
While sewing had been an inspiration, theater also caught Julianna’s attention and she soon found herself immersed in the combination of theater and costume production. She spent 35 years working in the theater industry, before transitioning to the custom fittings eight years ago.
“So I started doing bridal and my specialty has always been vintage bridal gowns. So I take them and I restore, restyle, and completely redesign them. Some people will bring me their moms gown and I will make it into something completely different. I’ve done a suit out of a 1980s wedding gown. I will do a lot of vests…that’s what I love to do—I love to take something that already exists and make it into something else. I really believe when you wear a garment all of your energy is in that garment and stays there, it doesn’t leave.”
As she dived into custom fittings, Julianna has found a passion in creating custom designs for queer folks. Pulling inspiration as queer indigenous woman and as a mother of a trans masc kiddo, Julianna has brought her experiences and her art together.
She recently designed for the Red Ball and publicly came out for the first time, but her comfortability and visibility in the queer community stretches way back. When she designed for Unique Week of Fashion she had the pleasure of working with a trans woman.
“I was assigned a model and she was so cool…and she’s transgender. I didn’t really realize it at first. As I was fitting her I noticed her body shape was not what I was used to. And I actually became friends with her and her wife, who is also trans fem, and they taught me so much about the difficulties of fitting for trans people who have transitioned after puberty. And I just fell in love with them, and when I made that first dress for her, her face completely changed. And I was like, this is my calling; this is where I want to work.”
Julianna works with a plethora of folks, from nonbinary people to drag queens to everything in between. She finds joy in bringing them closer to themselves—both inside and out.
“My own child is trans masc. And when I saw them for the first time put a binder on, and that joy on their face, I was like, ‘yeah’. So I’ve been developing some things specifically for trans folks that I’m working on. But it’s just to see them, it just warms my heart in such a way. And I would have never known that would be my passion.”
“My favorite part is seeing their face when they see it come together because, since its custom, the first two fittings they can’t envision it because pieces are taken apart…but when there’s that point, and I always see it coming, it’s like their holding their breath and then they just exhale and then all of a sudden…its like they’re animated in a completely different way and that is my favorite part about this…But I find with with queer folks, it’s like they’re being seen for the first time—how they want to express themselves and how they can to look. So I’ve done a lot of research on how to cut things a little differently, how we move things around so it fits them properly, so it looks good on them.”
In a world of fast fashion, many of us have never had clothes that truly fit. Tailoring can help—but working with an artisan can open the door and allow people to express themselves in ways they never thought possible.
“I feel like I’m the artist that’s bridging the gap at this moment because if people don’t want the really cheap stuff but they want it to fit then you buy something and have it tailored or altered. But at the end really is that you feel good in your clothes and how we get there isn’t really important.”
If you are in need of a custom fitted pair of yellow bell bottoms or a gown fitted for the gods, you can head to her website or attend one of her classes at the Recreative . And if you happen to be lucky enough to already have a garment from Julianna, keep this in mind:
“All my garments have some type of secret message in them. I either embroider a heart in or initials or something. And they’re all hidden. So some of my clients never find it and some of them are like ‘oh my god, I just found it.’ It’s my love and my energy in the garments and I want to put that in there for them to take with them wherever they’re going.”
