Leather Clothing Designer

Chelsey Hall still has the denim dress she designed when she was 11.

 

Hall keeps the dress, with its American flags, schoolhouses and watermelon slices, among the leather outfits in a closet in her studio.

 

If the denim dress, a 4-H project that won her a grand champion title, looks like it belongs on a farmer’s daughter on her way to a barn dance, the rest of the closet would be more comfortable on a biker chick on her way to Sturgis.

 

The dress, in other words, seems out of place. Just like Chelsey.

 

It would be easy, too easy, to look at Chelsey’s raven hair, long eyelashes and her leather pants, pants she designed, and then pass by her father’s Greeley Stampede regalia, and pigeonhole her and her parents, Dianna and Bill Hall.

Bill is a longtime Stampede member and loves to display photos of himself next to stars who have performed here in the past — his favorite is a photo of Johnny Cash from the early 90s — and lives out in the country, not far from a feedlot.

Chelsey is working on establishing her own leather fashion business, the kind of classy yet bold clothes rarely seen on the prairie.

 

Chelsey calls herself the black sheep. Bill hesitated at that. Again, it’s too easy. Chelsey has some country in her big-city flash, and Bill’s hardly a hick. But there’s no doubt Chelsey, in some ways, fits her own description.

 

Her two sisters have children and have stayed here and seemed to fit Weld County more, like her parents. Chelsey was the middle child, and she was, as Bill said, the most “aggressive.”

 

Chelsey played soccer and loved to waterski on her father’s lake in the back of their home. She eventually got so many concussions, she had to quit soccer her senior year.

 

So she boxed instead, just for fun and, during a playful match with a friend, she got knocked out. Bill probably could have done without another trip to the emergency room that day. The Super Bowl was on.

 

Still, Chelsey loved her family, and they loved her. She graduated from Greeley West in 2003, and after believing she needed to go to Los Angeles — she called herself “a bit of a brat” during this stage of her life — she went to Colorado State University to study fashion.

 

The program was a pleasant surprise. A university known for its agricultural studies has a competitive and demanding fashion studies department that instilled a work ethic in her that remains to this day.

 

On Monday, she was already planning on an all-nighter to ready her designs for the finals of today’s fashion competition in Denver.

 

She may not look like her father on the outside, or dress in the same style, but she carries his spirit.

Bill made his money as an entrepreneur in oil and real estate, and he opened a restaurant, the Bayou House, though the Great Recession forced its closure a few years ago.

 

Chelsey works down in her parents’ basement, in a studio they set up for her, in the hopes of making her leather fashion line, Modern Madame, as big as it can be.

 

Chelsey’s approached that leather line, just like her life, a little differently.

 

Chelsey can fit any shape, even the skinny minnies like her who don’t shy away from the hip-hugging leather pants, but she almost prefers to put together outfits for fuller women, the kind with curves and a chest and, ahem, an actual posterior.

 

She markets to women who work in business or as a stay-at-home mom but have another, wilder side to them.

 

Her outfits are designed to fit that wilder side without looking trashy or punk rock. She hopes to mass-produce some of those designs, but she loves custom designing and fitting anyone who comes calling.

 

Chelsey spent five years in New York, which seemed to fit her, designing suits for names such as Calvin Klein.

 

But she prayed and made the decision to move back home a year ago because she felt a calling.

 

She may move back to New York, as her fiancé works in finance and may need to live there to chase his dreams, but she hopes to establish Greeley as her business base. She’s already found a couple of sewers and she hopes to find a way to manufacture her leather clothing line.

 

She can do that, she said, because she knows she’ll be back many times no matter where she goes. She missed that lake in her parents’ backyard.

 

She had her own place, in downtown Greeley, but she discovered she felt more comfortable where she grew up.

 

She may have to close the door to her studio occasionally to dodge her nephews and nieces, but she’ll eventually head upstairs, leaving the leather scraps on the table for the family time she treasures as much as her individuality.

Source: GreeleyTribune