Rethinking Luxury: Raquel Allegra

Many fashion designers resort to luxurious and expensive fabrics and materials to please their clients and critics. The day my first pair of designer shoes showed up on my door step from Gilt Groupe I sat in awe at the detail of the expensive beading that I could only find in $210 shoes. Not that there is anything wrong with expensive detailing and materials, it’s just not always practical, nor does it tickle everyone’s fancy.

And that’s how Raquel Allegra likes it. She adores reducing, reusing, and recycling clothing; especially LA County Jail t-shirts. Those tees, with the sweat, smell, and general ickiness associated with jail inmates is what creates her unique t-shirts and dresses. Her clothing line is definitely one of those lines that I can justify splurging on! She says, “They tend to be really vintage, soft and worn a bunch. They are in great condition….when it’s worn against the skin it’s going to feel really good.”

Raquel carefully goes through these thermals and t-shirts (sometimes in an enormous warehouse!) to pick out the best ones for her showroom.  After this these shirts go to her workspace where she finds inspiration in her sewing machine and special rotary cutters. Raquel commented on the us of rotary cutters, “it rolls on such a nice line, the scissors usually show cut mark.” So, it’s kind of like using a razor for cutting hair instead of scissors, more precise of a cut, huh?

Well, next comes the secret part that all designers have – the customization. She won’t share that secret. Then we would all be able to do that ourselves and we wouldn’t be buying her spectacular t-shirts right? But, she does share with us that it can take up to ten hours to finish up one shirt. Wow! That’s more than a day at the office.

The time she takes to customize her clothes definitely shows because her items are absolutely amazing. You can find a distressed scarf that is changed from a very plain white light almost cheese cloth looking fabric into a bright and brilliant transitional scarf that you can wear with jeans and a cheap tee. But you will also find things that you can accessorize with including a solid front cocoon dress that hugs every subtle curves you have without screaming “look at me!”

You can purchase up one of Raquel Allegra’s designs from ShopFlick It takes about 2-4 weeks to receive your custom made design, but isn’t it worth a little extra time to have something similar in your closet to what stylish celebs including the
Olsen twins, Heidi Klum, Nicole Richie, and Penelope Cruz have all been seen wearing?

Having these boho-chic inspired fashionistas wear your clothes, numerous bloggers, editors and stylists name drop on a regular basis, there must be a reason Raquel is the number one designer on Shopflick’s Top 9 for ‘09 Emerging Designers to Watch! For more info on Raquel Allegra and her fab creations go to Shopflick – and don’t forget to check out her website either.