Ali Blankley: Hazel Brown Collection

Make your own clothes and wear them. That’s how Ali Blankley got started with her acclaimed clothing line, Hazel Brown. A painter and single mother on a tight budget, Blankley was too poor to buy clothes, so she decided to make do by creating her own. 

“I just made what I wanted to wear and people started noticing,” she says.  “I still do that. I ask myself what do my friends want to wear and I sell my clothes to other women like me.”

With no education or background in fashion, or even the ability to really sew, Blankley took her raw designs and began Hazel Brown. Since then, Blankley’s clothes, which she describes as “poverty chic for the creative professional”, have landed her coveted spots in two prestigious indie fashion shows, Gen Art - Fresh Faces in Fashion 2005 and The New Garde 2007.

Blankley designs and manufactures her vintage-inspired women’s line by hand, with the help of a small staff, in her studio in Los Angeles.  As a former artist, Hazel Brown is for Blankley as much about the final products as it is about the construction processes. Her fabrics are of the highest quality and are manipulated by special techniques to give them an aged look. The result is lightweight, flowing pieces with simple, comfortable silhouettes.

 “My designs are imbued with my philosophy: I seek to emphasize beauty in ordinary existence - raw or refined, beauty is what I search for,” Blankley states.

Hazel Brown can be found at Passage in Phoenix, along with other boutiques across the country that specialize in what Blankley calls “intense handmade work.”