Q&A with Tracy McElfresh
Q What is your favorite fashion trend old or new?
A Hawaiian and Asian prints
Q What is your most hated current fashion trend?
A Large ruffles
Q Who is your favorite fashion designer?
A Anything that says “of Dayton” on the tag
Q What is your favorite local shopping destination?
A Hancock Fabric. I worked there for eight years.
Q What is your favorite out-of-town shopping destination?
A Sew to Speak in Columbus. They have the best fabric trends.
Q What piece is your closet desperately missing?
A The first dress I ever made.
Q What is your ideal bag?
A The largest one possible to take my sewing travel kit with me for people in a stitching dilemma.
Q Who are your fashion icons?
A Doris Day, Billie Holiday, Elizabeth Taylor and I’m always looking to see what Michelle Obama is wearing.
Tracy McElfresh is a stitch-it-herself kind of gal.
The Kettering resident has transformed 1950s tablecloths and thrift store finds into dresses, skirts and other vintage-inspired wares that harken back to times long past and starlets like Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day, Billie Holiday and Elizabeth Taylor.
“When I am not making something for other people, I am making something for myself,” the 38-year-old said during a recent photo session at Eye Candy Art Gallery & Studios in Dayton.
She has sold items online at www.etsy.com/shop/TRacyseWS for two years, but has sewed nearly her entire life.
“Our family thing was always to go to the thrift store. My mother would give us $20 and cut us loose,” the mother to a 17-year-old son said. “She still takes us to thrift stores for birthdays.”
McElfresh and her husband, Jeffrey, will celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary this summer.
Born in Florida, the Fairmont High School graduate is a third generation seamstress and dressmaker. She joked that her mom, Diana Wonderling of Dayton, still occasionally checks the seams on her clothing for perfection.
McElfresh’s personal style favors the 1950s, but she customizes garments ranging from those inspired by the 1920s to those seemingly plucked from the 1980s.
A dress inspired by Cincinnati funk musician Bootsy Collins is pictured on her Esty site near one that pays homage to 1920s flappers.
A nanny by day, McElfresh manages to make a dress nearly every week.
“I love to do it,” she said. “If you love to do something, you find time to do it.”
About the Author
