Night Six of Denver Fashion Week was filled with high energy and luxury. The hard work of six designers was presented on November 17, representing DFW Ready-to-wear evening. Denver audience members’ eyes gawked when Hoohah gave us 19 stunning looks accompanied by a fantastic ode to the Queen of Country, Dolly Parton.
Designer, Anna (Teddy) Tedstrom, worked diligently to produce these looks by hand and introduce the DFW audience to the Hoohah universe. Tedstrom, a Colorado native, brought her newest collection —which featured several 70s-inspired looks that encompass the outdoor love which embodies the mountain state.
Through a memorable girls’ ski trip, Tedstrom and her friends came up with the brand’s name: Hoohah, which encompasses the beauty of female empowerment in the outdoors. The brand is rooted in Tedstrom’s fantastic ability to design and embellish vintage ski suits. Her brand was born from this realization that “as for the fashion and technical outdoor wear community, we have gone deep into perfecting the technicality of ski wear. So now, let’s have some fun with it,” she said.
Not only did her Colorado upbringing give her outdoorsy blood that runs through her veins, but it also gave her the understanding that skiing is indeed a fashionable sport. Tedstrom is resourceful and wanted to combine that with her love for the outdoors “When I go outside I immediately feel happy and inspired by all the colors. I realized the clothes I would be wearing would be blacks, grays, and greens—matching the natural tones of nature— but it did not match the energetic tones of my emotion in terms of being outside and inspired,” she said.
Going to school in the big apple, Tedstrom noticed her longing for the mountains resurfacing. To fulfill this constant craving for the rolling mountains of Colorado, she started making ski jackets and pants in the Fashion Department at Parsons.
Making ski wear was nothing new for Tedstrom, she had been upcycling and mending vintage ski suits in her hometown of Vail for quite some time now. “I was always convincing my friends to get these vintage ski onesies. Then we would go and be like ‘oh I love this one but it doesn’t fit right’ or ‘oh the zipper is broken’, I would just start fixing them for them,” she shared.
She made sure to mention that being an outdoorsy individual can stem from a wide variety of activities. This notion inspired one of the brand’s top-selling items: the outdoorsy-ish up-cycled tee, “enjoying the outdoors can be anything from sitting in the sun drinking lemonade to shredding black diamonds on the ski slopes,” she emphasized. Tedstrom incorporates the childish and playful feeling of being outdoors in her high-end designs.
Tedstrom is bringing something new to the outdoor community: bright and bold-colored outdoor wear. Her designs have been nothing Coloradoans have ever seen before. Her inspiration? The 70s. Tedstrom explained, “I am really inspired by the 70s – fun, disco, colors, and flare pants. I also look to Dolly Parton in terms of her vibe – she is a strong, powerful female. I also get a lot of inspiration from my previous job at Marine Layer.”
The opportunity to walk her designs in DFW stemmed from her extravagant win from a previous runway event: The DFW emerging designer challenge. Tedstrom put her work down the runway for the first time in this event on Aug. 20. Her hard work paid off as the brand won the Fashion Challenge presenting them with the opportunity to present their work in Denver Fashion Week, “the emerging fashion show was the first time I felt the brand got recognition. That and then being here now and having made 19 completely new looks for Fashion Week,” Tedstrom explained.
For her debut at Denver Fashion Week, Hoohah presented their new collection on Day Six Ready-to-Wear. The Premise? What Dolly Parton would wear on a ski vacation. Obviously, there are several looks representing the high-energy ski suits she would wear on the slopes. But, Hoohah also presented us with pajamas: the apparel Parton would wear sitting by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate after a long day of skiing.
From loungewear to dinner apparel, Hoohah presented us with 19 hand-curated looks that introduced the audience to the Hoohah world.
Hoohah successfully brought the heat and energy to Denver Fashion Week, Day Six. Going forward, Tedstrom only hopes to keep the vibrations high, “I do also want to bring this energy into more than just skiing. I want it to be versatile. I do not want you to choose between being cute and warm. You can expect to see designs that fit many other outdoor activities, for example, we want to design some swimwear for activities such as water skiing,” she concluded.
Tedstrom is designing and creating her brand through empowerment and enjoyment of the outdoors. Tedstroms’ work fits right into one of the most notable quotes of Dolly Parton, “If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are an excellent leader.”
All photography by Roxanna Carrasco.
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