Meet Tara Lynn Scheidet

March 30,2023

We recently connected with Tara Lynn Scheidet and have shared our conversation below.

Tara Lynn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve always been a creative person, growing up I was obsessed with Harper’s Bazaar Magazine. I actually started designing clothes when I was just a kid, something about of how clothes made me feel empowered and sexy really inspired me. I would take my mother’s clothes from the 70’s and upcycle them into something new for me to wear. I actually still have a few of those pieces and wear them today.

The first jacket I made for myself was crafted from my mom’s bell bottoms. I turned them into a mini skirt and from the bottom half made a jacket. When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to pursue fashion design so I enrolled in classes and worked for some designers in New York like Karen Smith Design, Montgomery Harris and Toshiki and Maryszka.

But I didn’t get inspired to pursue an artistic path within the sustainability space until I was attending the Fashion Institute of Technology. I wrote a paper about the dark side of fashion and the devastating toll it has on our environment. I realized there wasn’t anything sexy or empowering about that side. So, I researched eco-friendly fabrics and discovered hemp, then I worked at a hemp shop in NYC and the rest is history! My focus became using natural fabrics and natural imagery to inspire all of my designs.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Tara Lynn and I’m the owner of Tara Lynn Bridal and Earth Bitch. I’ve been working in the fashion industry my entire life, I started off in high school in the studios of other designers in NY, then after graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) I began working at a hemp boutique and designing custom hemp fashions in 1999. Since then, I’ve moved to Sutton, Vermont where I have my own atelier and sell my one of a kind natural designs online. I knew pretty early on in my career that natural fabrics and the natural world were going to be my creative path.

I began by designing wedding dresses (and a few suits) using hemp fabrics, linen and silks then I expanded my business to include my Earth Bitch brand. Earth Bitch has t-shirts and jackets also made of natural and organic fabrics as well as lined and embellished with repurposed textiles.

The name Earth Bitch was actually my nickname at FIT because I was the weird girl who sewed with hemp and it was the late 90’s, no one did that! I was a green, eco, sustainable designer before people even knew what that was. I’m kind of an OG in this field. My wedding dresses or Earth Bitch designs are made in small quantities, what today we are calling slowfashion. I use natural fabrics and take my inspiration from nature itself.

The people who wear my designs care about the environment and climate change. They understand that fast fashion contributes so much pollution and harm in our world and they don’t want to add to it. Usually, my brides are looking for a dress that isn’t the norm, some of them don’t even bother going in wedding dress shops because they know no one will carry what they want. Every dress I make is custom and includes personal elements to the bride, like a cardinal representing her father or a couple’s astrological signs. My motto is “Wear what you love, Love what you wear”.

 

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal and mission has always been to advocate for ecology. I started designing hemp dresses in 1999 before climate change or global warming were headline news. It seemed odd at the time, but now more and more people are drawn towards brands with sustainability in mind. As my brand has grown, I’ve moved my focus from couture natural wedding dresses back to my wearable art jackets that can tell a story while helping the world. And that is what drives me. I strive to show off the beauty we can see just looking at a starfish on the beach while also giving money to the people who do what they can to protect the ocean and creatures in it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are so many rewarding things about being creative. Like when I exhibit at an art show and a customer looks at my hand embroidered butterfly jacket and she begins to name each species. Or when another customer sees my work and says with surprise, “I didn’t know butterflies were endangered”. Or when a dad cries after seeing the hand painted trout leaping for an embroidered dragonfly on his daughter’s wedding dress because it tells him she values all the years they went fly fishing together. Or when the Xerces Society sends me a

handwritten note thanking me for my seemingly small donations, letting me know they appreciate the years I’ve made contributions. A big reward came when I read about baby Kenzie, the elephant I adopted through the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust using funds from the sale of an Earth Bitch jacket.

 

 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://earthbitch.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthbitchjackets/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063775913690
• Other: https://taralynnbridal.com/ https://www.instagram.com/taralynnbridal/ https://www.facebook.com/TaraLynnBridal

Original Story posted on canvasrebel.com/meet-tara-lynn-scheidet/