People love to moan that there's no fashion in San Francisco, that you can't find a fashion designer, that nobody here sews, that everybody great has moved to LA or New York, or a mythical third coast where bolts of silk fall from the sky. I don't know what to tell you except that you're wrong.
I am asked all the time if I can make something, or if I know someone who can, and the answer is yes and yes and here is a list of the people I know. Many of them would love to hear from you.
First though, a small note to San Francisco fashion shows, local "fashion writers," and museums who might read this: every person on this list deserves a runway slot, a feature story, and a spot in a permanent collection. Our press covers the Thom Browne show but not the person ten blocks away making hand-sequined tartan by the yard. Let's fix that.
Eluterio Lopez
I know Eluterio for their skinny frame, their Iris Apfel glasses, and the time they showed up to Art Bash in a dress made out of business cards. We did an event together about a year ago with FLUX SF, which is where I got to see the whole range of their printed and painted avant garde work: lots of black, white, and red, and all of it theirs.
Eluterio was born and raised in Lodi, California and came to SF in 2017, where Paul Gallo's fashion illustration course at City College (see below; Paul is a mentor of mine too) is what first pushed them from painter into designer. They now run a brand called Optimistic State of Mind, streetwear as canvas, live-painted on the runway.
Colleen Quen
I have known Colleen mostly by name and by silhouette in the high society circuit; we met once, briefly, at the de Young gala in 2024. I profiled her in 2021, and we connect periodically, in part because she's an advisory member on my fashion nonprofit; also because she's a genuinely nice person in the SF fashion scene.
Colleen is an haute couture designer whose pieces I clock on the wealthy-lady set all the time. She was born in Oakland, earned an AA in Fashion Design from FIDM in 1986, and later earned a certificate in French haute couture at the Simmone Sethna School before opening her own couture business around 2000.
She has dressed Paris Hilton, Tyra Banks, Vivica A. Fox, and Geena Davis, costumed Alonzo King's LINES Ballet's Scheherazade alongside Robert Rosenwasser, and this April, dressed Esperanza Spalding in an outsized green caftan for the world premiere of Legacy at Yerba Buena. She runs a quiet atelier up by Coit Tower, and paints Chinese watercolors when she isn't cutting patterns.
Christopher James Dunn
I know Christopher for selling at the Castro Art Mart, and for the dance costume work he's been doing for about two decades now. He started as wardrobe master at The Reno Dance Company in 2004, where he built costumes for Cinderella, Coppelia, Nutcracker, Aladdin, and more. In 2011 he moved to San Francisco and became a founding member of Dance Theatre of San Francisco, spending five seasons as their wardrobe lead.
He's made costumes for many productions, including those for Diablo Ballet, The Washington Ballet, and Arc Dance in Seattle. We've known each other close to a decade and bonded immediately over a shared love of sparkle. He makes all kinds of pieces, but what I love most is his hand-sequined work: long, dramatic coats with entire tartan patterns laid down sequin by sequin, by hand. Also, I miss running into him at Fabric Outlet. RIP.
Paul Gallo
I met Paul as a draping teacher at City College of San Francisco right before the lockdown in 2020, and I have not met a better tailor or illustrator since. He knows a body. He is a stickler for grain lines and traditional technique. Without him I would not have learned a jacket, a jumpsuit, a sleeve, or a lapel.
Paul attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and landed his first jobs on 7th Avenue before graduating. He had his first line of clothing by age 21 and his designs have appeared in magazines, TV, and film ever since. He has been teaching at CCSF since at least the late 1980s and holds the patent on the Getta Grip sewing clips, a sewing tool he invented in 2008. His current company, Gallofornia, is many years in operation and takes commissions. I love sitting in his queer AF rent-controlled studio in the Outer Richmond.
Stephanie Verrières and Kimie Sako
verrieressako.com · @verrieres.sako
I've only met Stephanie once, but her work fucked me sideways. This year at the SF Ballet gala she dressed dancer Joshua Jack Price in a custom gown and walked the red carpet alongside him like they were a fashion posse at the Met Gala. She mentioned that evening that another one of their pieces is archived at the de Young; she was right. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco acquired Verrières & Sako's 2009 "Swirly" gown, originally intended for an Obama inaugural ball, for the permanent collection.
On top of the label, Stephanie chairs the fashion department at Oakland School for the Arts, teaches in the apparel program at College of Alameda, has done costume work for Twyla Tharp, and worked side by side with environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy on a site-specific San Francisco piece. Come on.
Ismael Acosta
Ismael probably doesn't know we met years ago; I hosted glow parties in SF back when those were a thing and his name was in the mix. I don't know his garment work personally, but people have raved about it over the years enough to warrant a mention.
Originally from Sonora, Mexico, he trained in classical ballet at Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey, danced with Ballet de Monterrey until 2009, and toured Mexico and the US with the modern dance company Cuerpo Etereo before moving to SF. His design practice runs alongside the performance work, which is a pretty classic pipeline for how great costumers emerge in this city.
Mira Musank
Mira needs almost no introduction in the local sustainable scene. She runs Fafafoom Studio out of the East Bay, has been upcycling textiles as her main practice since 2018, and has diverted roughly 275 pounds of clothing from landfill through her own work alone.
Mira is also one of the people actively keeping this community alive by organizing shows, panels, and showcases; she co-founded the Rethink the Runway initiative as part of SF Climate Week programming, and she has been profiled in Conscious Fashion Collective and Fashion Strategy Weekly. I see her at many fashion things worth being at. Her next one is literally happening today.
Corrida Carr
I have commissioned Corrida for years. She stitches for San Francisco Ballet and has made me everything from pants to ball gown skirts with hundreds of yards of tulle, plus a running collection of flip-sequin vests I love.
Her freelance portfolio shows her range: she started with a bachelor's in interior design in 2010 before following costuming and fashion, which she's done as her main practice ever since. She is fast, she is detailed, and the handle on her Instagram is accurate.
Autumn Adamme
Autumn founded Dark Garden in 1989 out of her garage in San Francisco and is widely credited as the "Godmother of Modern Corsetry"; she made her first corset at 12, and the same source notes her Playboy work with Dita Von Teese in 2002.
Her Hayes Valley flagship still does production on site, she opened a New Orleans outpost in 2019, and her client roster includes Jennifer Lopez, Kelly Osbourne, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, and Lana Wachowski's wedding dress. Jean Paul Gaultier has praised the work and the Smithsonian has exhibited it. She also runs one of the rare local ateliers that is size-inclusive, queer-inclusive, and pays a living wage, which matters.
Kip Yanaga
Kip performs as Kipper Snacks and runs the Haus of Snacks; her design label, Snackum Dackum, makes custom clothing and costumes for drag, burlesque, and theater, all one-of-a-kind and hand-built. She moved to SF from Hawaii in the early 2000s and has since staged full fashion showcases at Oasis.
She graduated from the Transgender District's entrepreneurship program in 2023, and her pieces have shown up on RuPaul's Drag Race, HBO's We're Here, and in numerous local productions. While I can't speak a ton about Kipper's work from personal experience, I have seen the detail up close and remember being quite impressed.
Ryan Hill / Knobs
Knobs is the brightly-lit boutique at 432 Castro Street that you cannot walk past without looking in the window. Ryan Hill co-opened Knobs in 2014 after previously running Outfit across the street, and then consolidated both stores into Knobs after Outfit's 9-year run ended in 2019.
I sort of call this place the Forever21 boutique of Castro. There's certainly fast fashion in here; lots of Chinese manufacture. But Ryan also goes out of his way to cut and sew locally. In 2020-21 we collaborated for him to produce a very lively face mask business I was running. He's passionate about bedazzled shoes and how to make them. And he produced a square-sequin jacket on my recommendation that still gets compliments.
The store's own description leans into Pride, goth, steampunk, rave, kink gear, and fabulous underwear for men and unisex wearers. I am always picking up a little something for a party, and I see his wares worn constantly.
Jordan Joel / Jubilee
Jordan is a queer multidisciplinary artist whose label Haus of Jubilee makes small-batch garments conceptualized and produced entirely in San Francisco: silkscreened photograms, mesh, clean tailoring, pieces built around trans and gender-variant visibility. I met Jordan when we were featured in a fashion show at Swedish American Hall alongside Paul Gallo. We reconnected in 2023 for a queer prom. I love their work.
Per their Mission Cultural Center bio, Jordan holds a Berkeley degree in conservation biology and documentary photography, which you would not necessarily guess from the work. Their current collection features hand-silkscreened leaf and grass photograms on mesh turtlenecks, loose-fit pleated trousers, and canvas beach bags.
Kate Tova
Kate is primarily a contemporary visual artist, Russian-born in the small riverside town of Balakovo, New Orleans-seasoned, San Francisco-based since 2019. We met during the pandemic when I was making masks with artist prints on them. She asked me recently how I discovered her online, and I still can't remember, but we've been friends ever since. Sisters in glitter, gems, and high-contrast fabric.
She studied at the First Moscow Educational Complex and Delgado Community College in New Orleans, and has exhibited in Vienna, Berlin, New York, and Prague. She's known for large, vibrantly textured mixed-media paintings and her pandemic-era "Street Hearts" on plywood around the city.
I do not know whether Kate is still designing fashion. She has moved to Monterey and continues to paint. But I bet for the right price, you could still get one of her amazing gowns.
Wes Crain
Wes is the Costume Workroom Manager at San Francisco Ballet and an award-winning costume designer for musicals and plays on the side. He grew up in a sewing household, pitched in at his parents' Civil War reenactments as a kid, and apprenticed in costume shops across Houston, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. I think I only met Wes once, when he was dating a friend of mine who also liked to dress in outrageous looks. Wes was also who introduced me to Corrida Carr.
At SF Ballet, he and his team have rebuilt and refurbished iconic repertory costumes, including the Lacroix-designed A Midsummer Night's Dream costumes borrowed from the Paris Opera and ongoing overhauls on Nutcracker pieces. If you have ever watched a ballet at the War Memorial and wondered who actually built what's onstage, a lot of it goes through his shop.
Haydée Quesedo
Haydée is a Venezuelan-born, San Francisco-rooted designer who trained in garment construction from age five and graduated from Academy of Art University's BFA Fashion Design program in 2024. Her thesis collection, "Ruffles Gone Rebellious," mashed flamenco with rock music using upcycled denim, bespoke textiles, and original jewelry made in collaboration with two other AAU grads.
KQED covered her pre-show studio work as part of its reporting on the city's unofficial fashion week. She is at the start of what will be a very long career, and someone should put her in a show before LA or New York does. I met Haydee through the City College program and will commend her stitch work here as impeccable.
Mr. David Glamamore
To be gay in San Francisco is to know the drag queen Juanita More. But unlike most queens: you don't know Ms. More for her performances. You know her for what she wears. And much of that closet is created by one Mr. David Glamamore. I have heard archetypal bitchy quips about Mr. David's campy style; and that serious fashion wouldn't accept his work. For me, though, this duo was one of my first inspirations when I moved to San Francisco in the 2010s.
Mr. David's fashion career started in the East Village in the 1980s, where he performed with the legendary Boy Bar Beauties and designed the patterned harlequin jumpsuit and green sequin catsuit that Lady Miss Kier wore in Deee-Lite's "Groove Is in the Heart" video and tour in 1990, per Kier's own account.
The de Young staged a runway retrospective of his work for Juanita in 2016, presenting 200 of an estimated 3,000 pieces. These two have never been personal friends of mine, but we've crossed paths over the years. Their footprint in the SF queer scene is undeniable, much as their shameless self-promotion can grate on me.
David Reardon
David works quietly under the Creative Costumes banner on Instagram and has a much smaller public footprint online than most people on this list. And that's a little ironic, considering how popular he is in the San Francisco performance arts scene. David is a ravenous attendee, going to see the same show 2, 3, or more times during a run, and always in a custom creation.
David does not sew. He glues, and he commissions sewn work for him to embellish. But the pieces he makes are incredibly well-crafted. And he sells racks and racks of vintage at Castro Street Fair, Art Mart and others. DM him.
Amethyst H. Sallinger
Amethyst runs Purple Gem Fashion, a sustainable line built around reversible evening wear and sequin pieces made from natural materials. In a West Coast Leather interview, she talks about how the reversibility is intentional: one garment for multiple occasions. She has showcased as part of the de Young Museum's ArtWear pop-up at Wilsey Court (proceeds shared with the Fine Arts Museums) and did an artist salon at Monument alongside jazz and visual artists.
I met Amethyst once at an event for St. Joseph's Arts Society, and we had a coffee shortly afterward. I see her out and about now and again, and she's always sweet and fabulous.
Natalie Walsh
@minute.musings · nataliewalsh.com
Natalie is the designer behind the fiber-optic dress that went viral after Silicon Valley Fashion Week; the design was open-sourced through Instructables, where she worked for nearly a decade as their first designer, and subsequently rebuilt and reinterpreted by strangers at Burning Man and festivals around the world.
She has since moved her practice firmly into sustainability and circular design, teaches mending workshops, and co-founded the nonprofit Climate Designers. Also: started her first "business" selling knitted cat toys at age seven, which I find charming and correct. She was one of the first designers I connected with in San Francisco, which I explain more about below.
Saul Sugarman
Oh, right: I'm a designer, too. That's why I know all these people! I was self-taught from late 2014 to 2020, which is when I enrolled in the City College program and met Paul Gallo. Lockdown quickly followed, so he and I worked out an arrangement at the time where I helped him with social media and a book launch, and he taught me more advanced sewing in an in-person quarantine bubble. Before meeting Paul, I had been making mostly Burning Man and—erm—slutty looks. Leaving the pandemic though, I became a local red carpet queen.
My first notable work was making a disco helmet for Miley Cyrus. (That's the helmet in NYTimes.) It was actually based on a tutorial by Natalie Walsh, featured above, and how we got to know each other. I've since showcased my work in two fashion shows, the latter one a queer prom hosted by one Peaches Christ. My work was in NYTimes a second time when we went to the Kentucky Derby in 2024.
I do have clients, and I would love to hear from you. But fashion isn't the most lucrative enterprise. My partner and I just bought a home in 2025 (in Forest Knolls, come say hi), so my business activity tends to focus on more effective ways to pay that mortgage. But I'm hoping to incorporate some bags and other pieces at $500 or under that might help fundraise for The Bold Italic later this year.
Saul Sugarman is editor-in-chief and owner of The Bold Italic.
The Bold Italic is a not-for-profit media organization, and we publish first-person perspectives about San Francisco and the Bay Area. We operate under a fiscal sponsorship of a 501(c)(3).
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Am I missing a name on this list?
Absolutely. Tell me. Then remember I'm not paid for this work but for the grace of my paid subscribers (THANK YOU), and ask me for a media kit and sponsorship rates. 😊
Want more fashion?
As I said, Mira Musank is spreading the word about an event this afternoon. (Sorry for the short notice–it's been a busy month.) It's a clothing swap and repair. Here's some marketing copy and ticket deets:
"Your closet is ready for a refresh, and you are ready for an accessible circular fashion experience! Join Rethink the Runway for Recharge Your Closet, our 2026 Signature Event during SF Climate Week, where style seekers, repair specialists, and sustainability innovators come together to make circular fashion accessible, practical, and personal."
Today, April 21st, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Rivian. 340 Fell St. Tickets for $25.
Then on May 9th: Oakland School for the Arts presents Deconstruction: Turning Fashion Inside Out. It's a show that features designs that play with structure, silhouette, and material.
Tickets from $15 to $65. More details.
Coming soon in your email
I recently attended the de Young gala, Dress For Success gala, and LGBT Center gala. This week, I'll go to the Mere Mortals premiere, and next week to Art Bash. I'll try to not spam your email box with all of these reviews, but check thebolditalic.com in the coming days for more writing.
The SF arts, nightlife, and fashion are my personal beats. I'm still running The Bold Italic as a holistic perspective on many parts of the city. April is just insane in the arts world.
If you're looking to attend anything I'm going to, check events.thebolditalic.com for my picks and more.
