Fashion designer Carol Crudden created Ziezo, a one-of-a-kind boutique in the Delmar Loop that has never lost its freshness
As told to Lynnda Greene
Photograph by Vivian Ogier
As smart and kicky as her boutique’s name—ziezo means “voilà” in Dutch—Carol Crudden has been leading the local fashion scene by the nose ever since she opened the store in the Loop 24 years ago, while she was still in college. Though she no longer creates her own eclectic style cocktails, her taste (she stocks Betsey Johnson, Miss Sixty, French Connection ... ) continues to draw generations of women who call Ziezo their secret.
I knew I had some kind of gift from the time I started drawing Peanuts characters as a kid, but I don’t think I’d have found my focus had I not grown up around some amazing, creative women. My grandmother hooked rugs; watching her, I learned to love making something attractive and useful with my hands. My mother worked in Claire Keller’s antique shop, then at Clayton and DeMun, and I’d stop in every day after school, hanging around those two women as they talked about and moved among beautiful old things.
My mother died when I was 14. I was lucky enough to go to Rosati-Kain High School, where two incredible art teachers, Sister Gerald and Sister Vincent, had us concoct all kinds of creations from materials they had collected from all over and stored around our classroom in huge shopping bags. We learned all about contour drawing and graphic art, which really influenced me. Later, at Webster University and the University of Missouri–St. Louis, I had to do traditional figure drawing, which was less technical and tight than what I was used to. I preferred working with fabrics and making up outfits from things I found.
By the time I was a junior, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable in fine art, but I didn’t know what else I could do. Then, in 1982, I went to a fateful party, where I met Marion deRuiter, a Dutch woman who liked the way I put things together. She asked me to open a shop with her. We each put in $2,000, and we bought a sewing machine and rented a 600-square-foot hole in the wall for $195 a month.
We taught each other what we knew: sewing and silk-screening. We scavenged and improvised and experimented: we’d buy men’s plaid shirts at thrift stores, cut off the bottoms and sew on skirts. We sold everything we made but still didn’t make any money. I took the place over when Marion went back to Holland, but it was a real scramble. I worked at a restaurant and put my tip money into the store just to keep it going. I started going to trade shows so I could learn the industry.
You really need to find a community of like minds if you’re going to be successful as a designer. St. Louis offers lots of good resources—great thrift stores and talented people—but you have to seek them out, because everything works by word of mouth and happenstance. I was able to find a community because, making my clothes on-site, I was always accessible. People would come into the shop to talk, so it became a kind of meeting place. We’d help each other out, work together so we could coordinate production and PR. Those were great times.
Over the years I’ve noticed a cyclical ebb and flow to the boutique business here. There would be a creative peak when I’d see five or six interesting shops, and then they’d all disappear and I’d be the only one, and then I’d see new ones. Over the past few years, I’ve seen five or six new boutiques open up, which is great because new blood improves the quality of what people can buy here; it also stimulates a whole new underground from which the next wave of designers will arise.
Success depends on the ability to develop an eye and then isolate a look. You’ve got it if you can make a T-shirt, a Chanel purse and an item from the thrift store work together. I’ve always been able to spot something, take it out of its environment and know how to use it. I’m completely self-taught and still grow all the time, although I don’t read fashion magazines anymore, because I don’t want them to influence me. Dressing well is a frame of mind. Some of my clients are as young as 12, others well into their fifties. So many come in here and say, “I bought a dress from you 15 years ago and I still have it!”
St. Louisans know quality, but it’s hard to get them to explore the city and try new things. They have to understand that when they buy a dress from a local shop, they’re not just buying clothes; they’re participating in a creative dialogue and building a healthy, broad-minded community.
