Style Counsel: Tamara Musser
Please meet the Seattle-based designer fashion collector par excellence.
Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Nov 18, 2011 at 01:00PM
10 Comments
Once I finally got to talking with Tamara Musser at this year’s Nordstrom Designer Preview, I knew I had to introduce her to you.
And when I say you, I’m talking to you, the ones who love this stuff, and I am talking to the folks who say Seattle is a city full of casual Fridays and frump. I am talking to folks who say that we don’t understand high fashion the way they do in other cities.
Musser is a collector par excellence, but she doesn’t treat fashion like some passive board game. She collects smartly and impulsively. She buys what she loves, and follows certain designers obsessively (McQueen was one), but she isn’t someone who lives and breathes by names and labels.
She lives and breathes by reworked hemlines (as her alternations gal at Nordstrom would tell you) and killer shoes. She lives and breathes by how fun it is to wear something artful and engineered and exceptionally well-made and shiny and short.
And she decided along time ago that if she was going to collect this stuff, she was going to wear it. Every day. So she joyfully mixes seasons and genres and wears them to work—no, not some art gallery or luxury law firm, but a North End school where she deconstructs math problems for teenagers.
Whoa. Makes you feel pretty silly for wondering whether or not that Marc Jacobs polka-dot skirt would work in the board room, right?
Here, Musser wears a Pucci gown (it’s a turtleneck and a plunging V! this one won’t go to school—and it hasn’t been worn out yet) that she and her alternations team are considering making some, um, improvements to. She’s thinking that heavy, opaque forest-green panel doesn’t necessarily need to obscure the pailette-covered panel—or her entire leg…
What do you think? Should they lob it off or keep it as Peter Dundas designed it?
Tags: Style Counsel
I love Tamara! I was lucky enough to experience her first hand and she is amazing.
She helped my son so I got and wanted to see her everyday. I had never experienced someone wearing clothes like these. She is amazing!!!
I’ve seen her at events! She always looks like she’s having fun and I always wonder who she is.
I have had the chance to experience the teaching of Tamara Musser. She is a fashion diva and a very cool teacher. She changes the life of every student that walks in the room. ROCK ON MRS. MUSSER!!!!
she is my teacher she gives me candy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
she is a cool teacher and she is so funny your the best teacher i ever had.
I have had the privilege of working with Tamara for 20 years. She is an amazing teacher as well as an amazing friend. I enjoy coming to work everyday just to see what she’s wearing. I’m always in awe at how well whe walks in her high heels all day. This comes from someone who wears tennis shoes to work.
Musser is my second mom. She was my teacher 11 years ago and she is the most amazing person I have ever met! I love you musser!!! Your so beautiful!!!!
Tamara has been lighting up rooms with her creative dressing since high school in Portland. You go girl.
Absolutely Beautiful! Love, Love, LOVE the outfits! Would love to see photos of the wardrobe! An amazing person, inside and out!
What an inspiration to see a teacher who has touched the lives of so many children lives with charisma and Style! A true Class Act:)