Seattle designer fashions fun and funky clothes for the adventurous dresser

"It's all about other people touching you," the 31-year-old designer says with a smile.

Fletcher's Capitol Hill store is crammed full of clothes with textures to tempt the fingertips, not to mention colors to make a rainbow envious and patterns that insist: "Notice me!"

People are most certainly noticing. Those who want to give their sense of style a sense of adventure are flocking to Fletcher for help. And tomorrow, she will show off her inimitable clothing line at the Arena Fall Fashion Show, a vibrant celebration of the Northwest's finest independent designers.

In a world that encourages cookie-cutter clothing, Fletcher's threads are as unique as the people who wear them.

"I can't handle this Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch stuff," she says, swearing that every clothing item in her store is a one-of-a-kind. "Why do you have to look like everybody else in khakis?"

In short, her Dumb Clothing says: "I'm smart enough to be my own person."

		Loren Callahan / P-I
	From right, Paula Fletcher, owner of Dumb Clothing, styles Sabrina Carter as Anna Telcs admires a dress that will be modeled in the Arena fashion show tomorrow.

But these duds of hers also have a sense of humor. A sewing machine dominates one corner of the store, surrounded by drifts of confetti-colorful fabrics -- luminescent greens, sparkling silvers, baby-lip pinks, pay-attention-to-me reds.

"I love mixing and matching quirky and unexpected fabrics so people have to wonder -- 'Does that match?' " says Fletcher, of the fun and funky fare she makes right there in her store. "I want it to be kind of . . . off. It adds to its charm."

Fletcher grew up in England and began making clothes when she was 14. Back then she used whatever fabric she could get her hands on -- duvet covers, table cloths, curtains. (Scarlett O'Hara, eat your heart out.) She says she once used striped bed sheets to make a jacket and pair of pants. When she was 16, she began selling hats and soon began selling her homemade clothes as well.

Fletcher says she's had almost no formal training. "It's really odd, I've just always understood it."

If there's one thing she loves as much as making clothes, it's traveling the world. At 22, she left England. Her travels took her to Greece, Israel and the United States. She worked for a time in New York selling her clothes wholesale and at street fairs in SoHo before eventually opening a store. After another globetrotting stint, she ended up in Portland, where she spent three years making a name for her funky seamstress style.

In October 1999, she came to Seattle, first opening a store at 11th and Pike and then moving to her current location -- 413 E. Pine St. (You also can visit her at www.dumbclothing.com, which lists seven other local outlets that carry her line.)

In a city where gray is the dominant color, Fletcher is decidedly fuchsia. "Just because the weather is drab does not mean we have to be," she says. "Life is short. Who cares what other people think? Be as outrageous as you want."

Although women are her most-frequent clients, more men have been venturing into her store these days. Everyone seems to appreciate her prices, which remain very reasonable -- from $20 to $120 with most items running $35 to $50.

		Loren Callahan / P-I
	Fletcher, who has been creating clothes since she was 14, does a fitting with Anna Telcs, who is wearing an outfit that Fletcher designed and crafted in her Capitol Hill shop.

Sounds smart, right? So whence the name Dumb Clothing? Fletcher says it was a reaction to people who wear clothes because of the name on the tag inside. "I tried to think of a ridiculous name that made a mockery of that and Dumb Clothing was born," she says. "It usually brings a smile to the face and it reflects the sense of humor that I think the clothing has."

But Dumb Clothing isn't all laughs. Fletcher is a designer with a message -- one who is deeply aware of how the fashion industry affects the way people view their bodies and, especially, how it treats larger women. Fletcher herself is a size 12.

"I have been on the eating disorder/bulimic roller coaster and recognize those tendencies in others," she says. "For years I tried to hide my body and camouflage my shape until I realized that this actually made me look a lot bigger and feel a lot more ashamed of it."

With that in mind, she says she designs clothing for herself and "other women that are discriminated against because of their size."

"I try to steer clear of anything that is not so forgiving on the body and use fabrics that have more of a smoothing effect," she says. "I start most of my clothing at a size 5 or 6. I feel if there were larger sizes on the racks to begin with, we wouldn't feel so much isolation and shame."

This doesn't mean she excludes smaller-size people. She'll alter her clothes to suit any size right there, at that moment, for no additional cost.

"Paula has an amazing knack for making women feel really beautiful and really good about themselves," says Molly Cherry, who stopped by Dumb Clothing for the first time one recent Friday, desperately in need of an outfit for the evening. Cherry walked out with a sexy skirt and shirt ensemble that Fletcher had stitched together on the spot. She also left the store with a modeling gig.

		Loren Callahan / P-I
	Fletcher, a self-taught seamstress from England, specializes in making clothes out of unusual fabrics. She guarantees that her handmade outfits are one-of-a-kind.

At tomorrow's Arena fashion show, Fletcher's outfits will be showcased on 14 models -- only one a professional. "I try to use girls of all shapes and sizes," Fletcher says. "My average-size girl this time is about a 10. All of them are friends or customers that have been through my store." [Note: The number of models was incorrect in the original version of this story.]

Ultimately, Fletcher says she wants to help people -- especially women -- feel good about themselves.

"And what better place to start than with the clothes they wear?" she asks. "When people come into my store and start with the 'oh my butt is too big' or 'maybe when I lose 10 pounds,' I ask them, a) 'Would you say that to a friend? No! Then, why do you feel you deserve to hear it?' And b) 'Who says you are not perfect the way you are?'

"I think that if I repeat this enough times, maybe it will sink into my head, too."

GET IN THE ARENA

Rosson started the show in 1990 as a grass-roots project to support independent designers from the Northwest. Since then, it has earned a reputation as an eclectic and sometimes outlandish event with a flair for the theatrical. "We encourage a wide selection of different music styles and choreography," he says of the now semi-annual show, which features everything from street-wear to couture, lingerie to bridal styles.

At last spring's Arena fashion show, Paula Fletcher made a big splash. Or perhaps, she made a big smack-down. During her portion of the show, the daring Dumb Clothing designer had her models cat fight their way down the catwalk. The girls pushed, shoved, tripped and even body-slammed each other -- full-on WWE style. At first, the surprised audience watched in shock. But by the end of the performance, the crowd was roaring its approval.

"You expect models to be bitchy and pissy behind the scenes. I just wanted it to be right there on stage," says the mischievous Fletcher. (You can watch a recording of the performance at her Web site www.dumbclothing.com.) So what will Fletcher's models do when they hit the runway tomorrow? We won't reveal the details, but we can say it will involve chainsaws and sword fighting.

Seattle PI- Friday, October 11, 2002