When eco-couture designer Tara Lynn Scheidet boasts, "Each dress has a story," she means it has a fairy tale. Like the one in which bride-to-be Kellee Wagner and her mother lit out across the Adirondacks, ferried over the lake and rambled through the forests of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom to reach Scheidet's bridal studio in Sutton. Bearing with them an old dress and a tablecloth, they asked her: Could she alchemize these materials into a wedding gown? Scheidet has a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and a client roster that includes a previous Miss Vermont — in 2008, she made Ashley Wheeler's gown for the Miss America pageant. The designer also has a thing for nature. At her studio, Tara Lynn Bridal, she makes bespoke dresses from earth-friendly organic cotton, linen, silk and hemp blends. Examining the materials those upstate New York clients brought to her studio, Scheidet went to work. "I grabbed some chiffon and layered it across the dressmaker's dummy," she said in a recent interview. Next, she added a drapery made from the tablecloth, which featured hand-embroidered dahlias and daisies. Some pins here, a tuck there. Suddenly, the bottom of the old dress became the lining for the new, and — voilà— the bride-to-be saw the promise of her future wedding gown. Scheidet's start as an eco-designer also has elements of a Cinderella story. Seventeen years ago, increasingly concerned about the "dark side" of fashion — sweatshops, toxic chemicals and dyes — she abandoned New York City, moved to Vermont and launched her company. Using her needle like a magic wand, she's been making one-of-a-kind gowns ever since. The granddaughter of an upholsterer (who uses her grandfather's shears), Scheidet grew up in Setauket, Long Island. She started out designing couture outfits for herself; in junior high, she recalled, she took apart her mom's bellbottoms and made a skirt and jacket. The latter, she admitted with a laugh, was a little snug: "You couldn't hug anybody with the jacket on." All through high school, she continued to "make something out of something." She would spend her evenings whipping up unique creations, Scheidet said, and fellow students greeted her the next morning at the bus stop with benign curiosity. The hard part, she remembered, was walking the school's long corridor — her runway of sorts — where she was sure to elicit unwelcome comments or stares…
When eco-couture designer Tara Lynn Scheidet boasts, "Each dress has a story," she means it has a fairy tale. Like the one in which bride-to-be Kellee Wagner and her mother lit out across the Adirondacks, ferried over the lake and rambled through the forests of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom to reach Scheidet's bridal studio in Sutton. Bearing with them an old dress and a tablecloth, they asked her: Could she alchemize these materials into a wedding gown? Scheidet has a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and a client roster that includes a previous Miss Vermont — in 2008, she made Ashley Wheeler's gown for the Miss America pageant. The designer also has a thing for nature. At her studio, Tara Lynn Bridal, she makes bespoke dresses from earth-friendly organic cotton, linen, silk and hemp blends. Examining the materials those upstate New York clients brought to her studio, Scheidet went to work. "I grabbed some chiffon and layered it across the dressmaker's dummy," she said in a recent interview. Next, she added a drapery made from the tablecloth, which featured hand-embroidered dahlias and daisies. Some pins here, a tuck there. Suddenly, the bottom of the old dress became the lining for the new, and — voilà— the bride-to-be saw the promise of her future wedding gown. Scheidet's start as an eco-designer also has elements of a Cinderella story. Seventeen years ago, increasingly concerned about the "dark side" of fashion — sweatshops, toxic chemicals and dyes — she abandoned New York City, moved to Vermont and launched her company. Using her needle like a magic wand, she's been making one-of-a-kind gowns ever since. The granddaughter of an upholsterer (who uses her grandfather's shears), Scheidet grew up in Setauket, Long Island. She started out designing couture outfits for herself; in junior high, she recalled, she took apart her mom's bellbottoms and made a skirt and jacket. The latter, she admitted with a laugh, was a little snug: "You couldn't hug anybody with the jacket on." All through high school, she continued to "make something out of something." She would spend her evenings whipping up unique creations, Scheidet said, and fellow students greeted her the next morning at the bus stop with benign curiosity. The hard part, she remembered, was walking the school's long corridor — her runway of sorts — where she was sure to elicit unwelcome comments or stares…