Shiny, happy Glister dresses are reborn from the scrap pile.

by Melanie McGee Bianchi . photos by Rimas Zailskas & Matt Rose

It’s fitting that fashion designer Valerie Phillips named her company after a word close to glitter. “Glister,” a dress line that she launched last year, is an Old English variant of the word “glitter.” Her edgy, rustic frocks are quite modern but also somehow evoke forlorn maidens, saucy wenches and the pastoral curves of valley, brook and wildflower.

Such bucolic beauty also makes the dresses wear well in our own hills and dales. The 26-year-old Philadelphia transplant acknowledges that she’s a city girl who fell in love with the mountains—and it shows. “I’m very into [the traditional aspects of] Appalachian culture, like making things from scratch,” she says. One wouldn’t necessarily go bouldering in a Glister get-up, but the dresses’ faded patchwork chic needs only a whiff of fog and a ghostly old-time soundtrack to be complete.

Last summer, Phillips managed the Lexington Avenue vintage-accessories boutique Embellishments (now closed), and began to experiment with making dresses out of found material. It began with a pair of purple clown pants. (Doesn’t everything?) She had plucked them from the free bin at downtown Asheville’s The Costume Shoppe. (That store’s founder, Susan Sertain, was part owner of Embellishments). “It had polka dots on one side and stripes on the other, and I thought, ‘This would be the cutest dress ever,’” says Phillips. “I made it, I wore it, people loved it, and honestly, it just exploded from there.”

She honed her skills at Arcadia University, a private liberal arts college in Philly, where, as a theater student, she altered and created period costumes for school productions. Her Glister pieces come from wrecked and repurposed garments that she sews back to life in vibrantly unexpected combinations. One dress’s calico halter top and striped bottom are bisected by a wide waistband of white eyelet. A slinky dress might come with a shirred, neon green, apron-style bustle.

Phillips acquires most of her starter clothes for free. When friends have bags headed for Goodwill, she takes the stuff off their hands and sorts through it to see what’s usable. She has made dresses from discarded animal-shelter blankets, tablecloths, quilts and couch covers. “You can make clothing out of just about anything, and that’s a really fun part of what I do. It’s a game—I’ll find a pair of old Carhartts and wonder, ‘What could this be?’”

Phillips says she favors the feminine, flattering dress shapes of the 1950s and early ’60s. Her dresses can be dainty as a little girl’s birthday cake, all lavender, white and pink.

She aims for shapes that accent the waist, which seem to be flattering on many women. “When you feel good in what you’re wearing, everything changes,” she says. “You’re a different person. I truly believe I can change the world by making people feel beautiful.”

Find Glister dresses in downtown Asheville at Honeypot (86 N. Lexington Avenue) and see more of her work at www.glisterdesigns.com.