If you pay Laura Lee Laroux a visit at her New Orleans-themed Redoux Parlour, she’ll offer you a cup of tea and invite you to tinker on her old-time piano. Peruse aisles filled with her “burlesque-y cowgirl” Revivall line of 35 local and regional fashion designers’ works and resale clothing. Sip some tea and hop on the music stage. Just don’t leave behind any article of clothing or accessory that you don’t want transformed.
A friend once left an oversized Bob Marley T-shirt at Laroux’s house. It soon became a dress.
“I never thought I’d see him again,” Laroux said. “Then I ran into him and he told me that he’d left his best friend’s favorite shirt at my house.”
On another occasion, Laroux transformed her roommate’s old tablecloth into a dress. Compelled to buy the dress, the roommate said, “It’s really weird I used to eat on this four years ago.”
After Hurricane Katrina, Laroux finessed her knack for creating clothing out of old materials while rendering aid to victims and providing relief work. From mounds of donated clothing and used materials, Laroux created new attire for the people she helped with the sewing machine she found among donations. She also grew to love the New Orleans culture of community.
Friday the 13th Party at Redoux
WHAT: | Super Stitches Party and Sale: Bring a project and in-house designers will help you revamp it |
WHERE: | Redoux Parlour, 780 Blair Blvd. |
WHEN: | Friday, noon to 8 p.m. |
OWNER: | Laura Lee Laroux, Revivall Clothing designer |
CONTACT: | (541) 342-1942, revivallclothing.com |
Laroux has ignited the Whiteaker Neighborhood in Eugene with New Orleans flavor since opening her Redoux Parlour in early November 2008. Tomorrow, Laroux and company invite students and community members to their Friday the 13th Super Stitches Party. Open house festivities will feature lessons in revamping old threads and creating new ones out of old items such as curtain rods and linens. You can be sure she’ll serve tea and encourage musicians to share their talents.
When Laroux was a kid, her grandma, Betty Jane, taught her to sew and crochet. Laroux studied fashion design in college at the New York Fashion Institute of Technology, but felt immersed in the industry’s pressures. Her teachers told her she’d have to be a gopher to work her way up. But Laroux saw her talented classmates’ work and decided that was simply not true.
Before Hurricane Katrina, Laroux felt frustrated with the fashion industry. Nine months later, at the end of 2006, she traveled west with her fellow relief workers and found Eugene. Here, Laroux discovered a “real support for local artisans to make a living off their art.”
“Wear what you want and don’t be afraid to dress up more,” Laroux said. “Show individuality in your clothing – this community is so accepting of that. I felt like I was this attraction in New York. People seek out the artists and fashion designers. Here you can wear whatever you want and people don’t do the stare-y thing.”
Laroux, now 29, has become close to other local designers and store owners, such as Mitra Chester. She also participates in the annual fashion show Chester began in 2007.
When describing her designs, Laroux says they are very feminine with lots of lace, ruffles and dancer-esque elements. Her specialties include “hoodlums,” or hat-scarves, bloomers, chastity belts, skirts and dresses.
“I find power in femininity,” she said. “I want women to feel beautiful and look sexy, but for themselves, not for other people or to be disrespectful. It’s a classy sort of sexy.”
For men, she’s recently designed wool vests and pants.
On top of owning Redoux Parlour and designing her own line, Laroux works 30 hours per week for Looking Glass Youth and Family Services’ Station 7 Program.
She encourages students interested in fashion design and resale to find a product they enjoy making, streamline the processes and produce between 10 and 20 replicas of that product. The Web site Etsy.com has become a force for how designers sell things, Laroux said, emphasizing that there’s so much yet to be tapped into in the do-it-yourself movement.
Since she moved to Eugene, Laroux said she’s been to the mall once to visit the cell phone kiosk. Soon she’ll buy a new pair of shoes. Between thrift store shopping, resale finds and making her own attire, though, Laroux buys almost nothing new.
She believes that if the world stopped producing now, “we’d still have enough opportunity to clothe the population.”
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