Insightful profile here from Barbara Blake of the Asheville Citizen-Times:
To say that R. Brooke Priddy is a dressmaker would be akin to saying that Julia Child was a cook.
This 32-year-old dynamo in Asheville’s fashion world has, in less than a decade, emerged as the go-to designer of garments that laugh at convention and take edgy originality to breathtaking heights.
But Priddy has become an iconic player in more than Asheville’s hip fashion scene, helping to broker the HATCH festival expansion to Asheville in 2009, collaborating with other artists on projects with the Bob Moog Foundation, conjuring up jaw-dropping events to raise money for nonprofits such as LEAF International and the LEAF Schools & Streets project.
Collaboration is how she rolls. It’s the juice that keeps her creativity flowing by day and sweetens her dreams by night, giving power to a richly layered life that includes a thirst for making a purposeful mark on her own small piece of the world and beyond.
“Brooke is one of those rare individuals who actively cultivates collaboration with a sincere sense of play, intention and curiosity,” said local artist Nicole McConville, Priddy’s friend, neighbor and collaborator for almost 10 years.
McConville also speaks of Priddy’s “spectacular spirit of generosity” and says she brings people in the community together “with a sense of grace and delight that is profoundly inspiring.”
Priddy doesn’t just make dresses. At her custom-design shop Ship to Shore on Haywood Road, every garment she creates is in tandem with her clients’ dreams and desires, always with an eye for what will look most spectacular on a woman’s form at the end of the creative process.
“I love to collaborate artistically with others,” she said.
Priddy starts with a conversation with her client in her charming studio/shop filled with sunlight, fresh wildflowers and a rainbow of threads, fabrics and works-in-progress hanging on racks.
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She's also an awesome yogini!