I love what I do!! The transformative power of costume and fashion is very real. Baseline info about my Lily Guilder brand and me are on my HOMEPAGE.
I now live and work in my hometown, Oshkosh, WI where I employ my 9 year old Pomeranian Bowie as the Vice President of Meeting and Greeting. I have friends here that have known me since before I was born!!! I never would have believed you if you told me 10 years ago I would find my way home, fall in love with guy who grew up around the corner from me (Peter) and buy a house on the street I was born on but here I am!
I am a person who actually uses my degree (BS in Theatre from Northwestern University) every day!!! I started out working in tv, film and theater in NYC while also making crazy outfits for myself to attend counter culture parties and see my fave band The String Cheese Incident. I was lucky to get to work on long standing tv shows like Law and Order and assist on off Broadway plays written by famous playwrights making their world debuts but mostly I found the wardrobe necessary for these projects to be, well, boring. There is a ton of nuance in costume design that helps visually tell you about a character but suits and regular person clothing was for me, well, boring.
My NYC bestie and roommate Nicky B was dating a guy in SCI and said to me, “Let’s go on tour but I don’t want to be groupies. We are young and stupid so let’s just start a clothing company and sell it on tour.” I happily agreed and our first version of a company “Lost’N’Found” was borne. We sure did learn a lot that summer. It ended in the band taking us to this unknown thing called Burning Man (back in 2004, there was no social media or any press about it save for one Rolling Stones article). The Black Rock desert got cold at night then (40 degrees) and the best parties were at sunrise when shortly after that sun came up it would be HOT. My first sunrise the drummer took me by the shoulders and said “Have you really never been here?” I said “No Travis” and he replied “ You were born here.” The sun came up and I flipped my coat off my shoulders onto the straps I had sewn into it (this was a function of my professional hula hoop career needs, more later) and a crowd of adults cheered. From that moment on every coat I made would always have these straps!
I am a non fiction costume designer. I make clothing for people in their lives using the skills I honed as a costume designer. It is a pleasure and a gift to do this work. The school of hard knocks is real- I learned by doing and doing when I was tired or fingers were literally bleeding but now I know that anything I can dream of I can create with my hands!
