Fit for a Rose
A year after Rachel Flemister married her husband, Beau, they set out to travel the world.
Departing from Los Angeles, they visited everywhere from Mongolia to Indonesia. Along the way, Rachel was sketching, gathering fabrics (like the lace from Guatemala now featured in her Eva dress), and figuring out the style of her bridal line, De La Rosa. “The main thing is creating things I’m actually proud of and want to wear,” she says.
Rachel began sewing as an early teen, taught by her mother, who had learned from her own mother. She scoured Walmart for fabric, making pajama pants for friends and dresses to wear for Christmas Eve service. After high school, Rachel attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, taking an internship that landed her a spot at Bebe after graduating in 2008, then a designer role at Juicy Couture. “I love the process, from going to get fabric to patternmaking to draping to making the actual garment,” Rachel says.
Now, with her made-to-order line, she is able to do it all. Rachel features more casual fabrics in her creations, like silk, and lace made with cotton rather than nylon. For this, she heads to Los Angeles to source deadstock fabrics that would otherwise be thrown away—a sustainable approach to fashion. She also intends to tweak vintage wedding dresses, transforming old-fashioned silhouettes into modern profiles.
After figuring out the line’s aesthetic, Rachel needed to come up with a name. “‘Rachel Flemister’ is such a mouthful, it doesn’t really roll off the tongue,” she says. Then she thought about her sewing heritage, and remembered her mother’s maiden name, De La Rosa. “It was the most fitting thing,” she says. “And it means ʻof the rose,’ so I want everything to be really soft and flowerlike and easy and simple.”