practicing sustainable fashion for over 18 years
baily rose is a slow fashion designer
creating zero waste pattern designs
with regional fibers that support local agriculture
(SUSTAINABLE FASHION WITHOUT THE GREENWASHING)
b a rose occasionally releases upcycled collections & sewn zero waste bio fabric designs.
b a rose offers sewn services such as mending, alterations, and upcycling.
………..
baily ann rose
( b a rose )
wildly rose up on unceded Ute land,
on the legendary Battle Mountain in Red Cliff, Colorada,
learning to knit in 4-H clubs from her Mamma Rose.
Been practicing “sustainable fashion” as a muse & artist for over 18 years as an adult,
starting in Boulder throwing fashion, film, music, & art parties with friends & their musician lovers & brothers.
.
muse + artist
healing fashion
weaving dreams into the fabric of reality
creative waste manager
( designer )
upcycler
mender (of clothing & hearts & lineages)
storyteller | filmmaker | prufissurissa
tailor
garment worker
knitter + crocheter + needle worker = fiber artist = magic maker
obsessed with Fibershed principles,
zero waste & soil to soil knitwear
Chair of the Board of Directors for Mountains & Plains Fibershed
.
( she / her / pumpkin / bumpkin / paesanx :
b.a.rose’s preferred non-gendered terms of endearment )
.
fashion your reality
be a rose
love your clothes
as your second skin
love within
.
Fashion can be social justice work (if practiced in that way).
to deal (with the things),
it is conducive to name them (the things)
& state our position ( in society )
to create an understanding of
where our understanding
is positioned from :
aka
a concept created by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw
.
Statement of Positionality below inspired by Crenshaw & Teju Adisa-Farrar
Listen to Teju's latest podcast, & hear Baily as a guest:
https://www.whetstonemagazine.com/radio/black-material-geographies/episode10
4-H KNITTING CLUB PHOTOS TAKEN BY MAMMA ROSE
wearing a scarf made with mountains & plains Fibershed yarn
statement of positionality
gender: woman
class: low because i'm a woman & garment worker (both are systematically underpaid across all cultures); but i was raised upper-middle in "bedroom communities" to the richest resort towns in the world that put me in proximity to higher-class privileges; that led to higher depression rates than the national average because we compared ourselves to the richest rich (i helped to conduct a sociological study on this my senior year of high school)
ethnicity: Papa: Siciliana, Calabrese, Moroccan; Mamma: Irish, English, German, Scottish, French, Swiss, Prussian (from most to least). Actively deconstructing whiteness while acknowledging my privilege as passing & sud italiana famiglia assimilating into whiteness after experiencing discrimination (not me, famiglia stories that live in the bones until you heal that merda)
sexuality: Alloromantic Allosexual Androsexual Autoromantic Autosexual Demiromantic Demisexual Heteromantic Heterosexual Monosexual
culture: Colorada-Siciliana-Americana matriarch Nana (east coast Italian-American is a whole different animal - just sayin'- & get your Mafia stereotypes off me, by the way, basta, grazie, kiss kiss) instilled a strong sense of Sicilianess into our American identity; always feeling uncomfortable with the WASPy side of the family who were primarily ranchers & farmers;
raised in a tiny mountain town, questioning religion & the corporate monster of a ski resort (while enjoying the privileges of living next to a world-class resort), raised with the stories of Lovers Leap, a Ute tale, & Navajo cousins; growing up next to an abandoned mining town;
with the knowledge that industries fade, men die, & before they do, they leave scars all over mountains in search of riches, when they were unable to realize the bountiful beauty that surrounded them
skin color: Honey Tan Peaches 'n Cream Praline with Freckles
profession: garment & gig worker, teacher, director, organizer, driver (of change)
nationality: American, born 'n bred in Colorada able-bodied, except when i faint & lose consciousness
b a rose . love your clothes
FOLLOW US
ON INSTAGRAM
baily rose designs +makes everything
+ pays herself a living + thriving wage = ethical fashion
(another way to tell a story for people who like to read & are curious who is making the clothes)
Rose grew up in Eagle County on Ute land, learning how to knit and crochet at a young age from her Mother, who led 4-H Knitting and Crochet clubs. Her maternal side of the family had been farmers (Greeley) and ranchers (San Luis Valley) in the Colorado settled areas for over 150+ years. Her paternal side of the famiglia are Siciliana-Calabrese that settled in Pueblo, Colorado around 1900 after the Risorgimento, who have long lineages of spinning, crochet, and needlework.
While studying Psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Rose started designing upcycled fashions and producing shows with friends as a way to subjectify her experience after feeling objectified on the college campus. She didn’t have money to buy new fabric to create with, so she upcycled old clothes and linens that were readily available - even though she didn’t know what upcycling was at the time! Local journalists pegged her as an eco-fashion designer, which opened her eyes to the can of worms that the present day fashion industry is.
She continued to design and produce slow fashion events and continued her studies through natural dye apprentices in the Bay Area, obtaining her Sewing Certificate from the Emily Griffith Opportunity School (when they still had a sewing program!), workshops at the Denver Design Incubator, and sewing bootcamps at the Albuquerque Fashion Design Incubator.
While working as a production seamstress at an outdoor clothing manufacturer in Leadville (right down the street from where she grew up), she saw how much scrap fabric waste was created from common industry pattern cutting techniques - ending up in the local landfill. This prompted her to create zero-waste patterns in her own work.
A few months at the same job sewing recycled polyester fleece, she started breaking out all over, learning that micro-plastic shedding polyester carries hormone and endocrine disrupting chemicals that seep into our skin, and should never be worn next to our body! This was the start of her journey to seek out only compostable and healthy fibers to create with and wear.
She went on to tailor for high-end ski wear companies and clients in the Vail area, saving money to further explore sustainability in fashion in Europe, where education and living was cheaper, and sustainable fashion had European Union policy to lean on. She received her Master’s in Sustainability in Fashion and Creative Industries from the Akademie of Mode & Design in Berlin, Germany after writing her thesis on the importance of collectives in garment work.
Rose has since taught as Adjunct Faculty at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, Directed & co-wrote curriculum for a Fashion Academy for Elementary to High Schoolers, practiced as a Production Assistant in an Aurora based clothing manufacturing facility, and taught Fashion & Culture seminars in Siena, Italia.
She has experienced wage theft as a garment worker in Denver as a contract garment worker, which has deepened her commitment to garment worker rights, and creating an ethical and regenerative fashion industry for all.
She is currently donating her time to organize the Mountains & Plains Fibershed, and focusing on creating and selling her collections at a living wage.