An Interview with Designer Arielle Rose from Cirkus Waggon Inventions
Arielle Rose is a talented inventor and dress maker "travelling on a blue bus through the infinite vacuum of time and space with two cats." Upon being introduced to her, we were instantly drawn into her world and captivated by her free-spirited life on the road creating works of wearable art.
Below is a wonderful little interview with the designer which you're sure to find fascinating. Enjoy!
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Q: When did your love of fashion design first bloom?
A: When I was a little girl dress up was my favorite game. I also used to cut up my barbie dolls dresses and redesign them for my stuffed animals.
"As a girl growing up in an artistic house in Santa Cruz, California, Arielle spent much of her time working on creative projects. The designer’s earliest memories are of redesigning and reconstructing dolls dresses that her mom, a full time professional potter, had gifted her. Her favorite game as a child was dress up, and with age it seems that the dress up Arielle had so deeply loved, evolved into the experimentation with fabric and sewing that the designer now calls her career.”- Plenilune Magazine
Q: How would you describe yourself in just three words?
A: Innovative, Resourceful, DreamerImaginative, Etherial, motivated Designer
Q: We understand you travel around and design your fashion in a renovated bus - how fantastic! Please tell us more about your day-to-day life living in this old bus?
A: I did quite a bit of traveling before getting my bus making multiple trips. I went to 21 different countries, mostly by myself with my back-pack, lived in Europe for a year at the age of 20, traveling and living in artist shanty towns.
At 22 I got my bus. After coming home from over a year abroad I started bar tending at a local dive bar and sewing again in my spare time. My mother used to make pottery from pressing lace into clay, when I came home from my year abroad she had stopped her pottery business and had saved boxes of lace. Gifting it all to me, I immediately started making dresses with the lace and other recycled material. Soon I was selling them at local craft fairs and stores, (Wallflower Boutique in Santa Cruz and Resurrect in Oakland). I had been making and selling dresses for a bit before I started looking for a bus.
It took some months of looking before I found Rosie, (my bus). I got her for free from a friend, she had been sitting for 7 years. My regular customers from the bar I was working at helped me get her running. I broke down on the maiden voyage but we managed to make it all the way home with the support of a stranger, who bought me a new battery. When I got the bus home I began to renovate, tear everything out and build my home/studio/boutique. Mostly all the materials used to build the inside of my bus are recycled parts. A friend of mine was renovating his house and gave me some wooden cabinets and I got the hardwood floor from the scrap yard.
When I finished renovating my home and mobile work space I was on the road for three years touring, exploring, making connections, and selling my dresses. From Seattle, WA to Big Sur, CA and in-between. I did the Santa Cruz Fashion Art Runway Show 2012 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8UlTQskPho), Big Big Sur Fashion Show at the Henry Miller Library 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLD6s-RsNDs), WestEnd Fashion Art in Seaside 2014, Multi-able Runway Shows in 2015 in San Francisco at Merchants of Reality Gallery, The Red Victorian on Haight Street, and LA at The Church of Fun.
Living on the Road and Selling Dresses out of the bus taught me to really live in the moment. Every day I was making new things, sewing with power from a solar panel, and selling my dresses out of the bus, inviting strangers into my living/work space. It was mostly magical. Driving often, some places I traveled to were more receptive than others. In Arcata and Big Sur they were especially enchanted by my bus and creations. The fabric dresses I would sell out of the bus were based on donation, letting people create a price that was meeting their needs as well as their desire to support me. Because all the dresses are made with recycled material, each one is unique, attracting many different characters. It’s important for me to make people feel good about themselves and usually everyone can find a flattering fit, showing the personality and beauty of each individual.
When I first hit the road there weren’t many RV’s or buses I found along the way. These days, because of the housing crisis, the banks foreclosures, coupled with the fires in California, people are losing their homes and there are more and more RV’s, campers and house cars on the road every day. It was tiresome and some times heart wrenching to be on the road ALL the time, seeing families of five living in their van, so many people on the edge of society trying to find a place where they are allowed to exist.
With the wave of RV’s came “No Parking" signs in coastal towns, "No Camping" allowed anywhere. The places I used to park have been filling up. Trying to distinguish yourself as a traveling artist can be difficult, and not being allowed to be anywhere makes it harder. We are loosing our freedom, (or we have lost it) - to be able to exist. Now I have had to become a bit more selective where I go and why, spending so much more of my time parked in the woods working on new dresses and projects.
I take my Bus out for shows, things I’m invited to, and to different forest spots.I recently built a Travel Trunk, to take my dresses out to sell without the weight of my bus. It’s a pop up trunk/clothing rack with wheels. The Bone Witch and I take it places where my bus would be too big. It is called the "Bus and Bones Travel Trunk” in honor of our Etsy store "Bus and Bones". I am also selling my wares in two stores in California, Wallflower Boutique in Santa Cruz and Resurrect in Oakland.
Q: What inspires your creativity the most?
A: In high school I got a job in the local book store "Logos Book and Records", in the internet shipping department. I read a lot of William S. Burroughs at a young age, and his apocalyptic view of the real world mixed with a longing for the magic universe, trying to save it before it slips away “the whole magic universe is dying, the angels are leaving the alcoves everywhere to make way for Hiltons and McDonalds” - the realization that you are all you have, that you create what you want your life to be. I decided early that my life would always be full of whimsy and wonder, magical things to make my world somewhere I wanted to be. Burroughs' feeling of desperation gave me a need to find, inspire and create magic where ever I go, and to do it with what ever I had around me instead of buying new things and perpetuating the corporate machine.
John Cameron Mitchell "Hedwig and The Angry Inch", a movie from 2001 affected me as a young girl, gave me courage to be bold and not care what other people think . "Harold and Maude" a movie from 1971 with a wonderful soundtrack by Cat Stevens did the same, showed me that life is mine to live how ever I want, and that every one in the world is uniquely beautiful.
Patti Smith has been a huge motivator, reminding me of our will power as individuals, encouraging me to share my self, and be doing my work in the world.
Most of all I am inspired by what’s around me, and the beauty of nature. Making dresses from natural material such as: woven branches of freshly trimmed fruit trees, Eucalyptus leaves and bark, pinecones, redwood, seaweed, feathers (ethically sourced, like all the natural material I use) honey comb, sea shells, ivy, fern, moss, lichen, discarded shells of pistachios, or orange peels. Wine corks I’ve had donations of in abundance. Dresses made from old discarded books. I’ve even made a crocheted plastic bag dress.
All materials that would end up in a landfill, instead, re purposed as wearable art. Wanting to bring magic and wonder back, to inspire people to use what’s around them. To encourage new avenues of creativity, curiosity, and conservation. To look at things differently.
I always use recycled fabric as the basis of any fabric dresses I make. Most of my fabric is donated to me, people cleaning out their closets etc… The challenge of making something beautiful out of other people's trash, giving purpose to something lost and forgotten, letting it live again in a new form. Each piece brings its own inspiration as well.
Q: Lastly, what do you hope to achieve with your fashion design career in the near future; Do you have any upcoming, exciting plans that you would like to share with us?
A: To inspire people to have the courage to follow their passion in an environmentally conscious way that supports connection with the planet and other people. To show and inspire alternative and sustainable life style, disconnected from "mainstream madness".I have upcoming Runway Fashion Art Shows in Portland, San Francisco and Santa Cruz. My work partner and Artist friend Leo Olson aka The Bone Witch and I, share an Etsy store "Bus and Bones” . She and I have been teaming up and doing runway shows in San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, LA, and Summer Festivals. The Bone Witch makes Ethereal Headwear and Accessories, (instagram @thebonewitch and @busandbones,) the two of us have been working together a lot this past year, doing runway shows, art fairs, photo shoots, editorials and music videos for international musician friends. We have many more project on the way, including a Tarot Deck we are making that will be available soon on our Etsy store.
You can follow what I do on Instagram @CirKusWaggon42 and @BusandBonesor my website http://cirkuswaggon.wordpress.comEtsy: Bus and Bones
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We want to thank Arielle for taking the time to answer our interview questions, and we encourage you to check out her links above to see more of her work!