Meet the designer:

Dawn Bell, owner of the Houston boutique Evergirl Vintage and lifelong collector of retro couture.

Influenced by her mom’s style and thriftiness, the New Orleans native started collecting vintage clothes in the 1980s, when she was just 15. She says that the ’80s, being separated from the ’60s by a mere decade, were fertile times for finding authentic ’60s handmade gems.

Her teenage passion for vintage clothes stuck with her and over time she amassed enough pieces, an estimated 30,000 of them, to fill a warehouse in an east downtown Houston neighborhood.

Throughout the years, Bell hosted fashion shows, fashion camps for kids, and co-taught a course at Rice University on costume design.