Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Window Dressing: Leona Guidace flirts with some well-dressed mannequins in her boutique, DeCre.
Lincoln Avenue's Material Girl
Designer Leona Guidace makes clothing cut from a different cloth
By Michele Leung
It's a bit ironic. Leona Guidace's boutique, DeCre, which sports clothes that are worn by hip Hollywood luminaries, screams out chic, modern and trendy. Yet customers can find an Old World quality sewn into the fibers of Guidace's clothes.
Clothes designer Guidace (pronounced gwee-DAH-chi--"it's not guidance misspelled," she says) opened her Lincoln Avenue boutique in November. Her time-tested way of individually fitting all her customers--mothers, daughters and every woman in-between--is a pleasant bonus for some, making each customer feel special.
"She takes time to fit me. I'm slim and tall, and she gives me extra help," says frequent customer Maryann Curtis.
"A long time ago, before there were ready-made clothes, all women knew how to knit and sew," says Guidace. "Nothing was pre-made so they all worked on each person individually."
The first-time boutique owner may have gotten her old-fashioned touch by observing her mother, the town seamstress for Soldotna, Alaska, where Guidace grew up. She says the small town was like a family, where, "everybody knows everybody, and there are specific roles to play. There was the accountant and the grocer. And my mom was the tailor," she says.
Despite relishing the role of Old World couturier, Guidace also has had success with the mercurial world of Hollywood. Among some of the celebrities who have worn her styles are Sarah Jessica Parker and Demi Moore, and other designs have appeared on The New Love Boat and General Hospital. Novices might get easily star-struck, but Guidace remains cool, though she does enjoy the exposure. "Sooner or later, people will ask, 'Where did you get the dress?'"
However, a teenaged Guidace once thought the last thing she wanted to do was make clothes for others. She studied painting at Otis Parson's Art Institute in Los Angeles but after comparing herself to her peers, chose a different path. "When I was surrounded by such good artists, that's when I thought I should change majors," she says. "I didn't want to be mediocre."
DeCre is short for di creare, meaning "to create" in Italian. But lately, Guidace hasn't had time to let her creative juices flow. She has been reduced to channeling her inspiration on scraps of paper. "I put my ideas on paper, but the last two years, I have been sketching on yellow Post-its."
Apparently, she's also too busy to sew for herself. She likes to tell the story about the time she went to a wedding with an unfinished dress. "I look down and I see pins all over the hem. My girlfriends were laughing. But then, what are you supposed to do with the pins? So I left them in there."
Guidace acknowledges that the fashion industry is not a cakewalk, her biggest foe being the weather. "I need to change products every six months. I can't make a Monopoly game and sell it for sixty years," she says. Her designs range from the casual clothing of her Spice collection to more expensive outfits made with beaded lace.
Guidace considers DeCre's greatest strength to be color and texture. "We don't buy fabrics that look good from a distance but don't feel good [to the hand]. We want it to be as inviting to the touch as to the eye."
Helping her in the hue department is her husband Robert, who has a real eye for color, says his wife.
"No, I just fix everything up," he jokes. Her partner in life and in business, Robert is a painter, whose original artwork hangs in the boutique.
Guidace continues to focus on keeping her company specialty-oriented and is pleased with how her boutique is developing. Once DeCre customers have seen their one-of-a-kind dresses, many are reluctant to return to the old standards hanging in their closets.
"Her designs are not run-of-the-mill. They're classic," says Renee Singh, who frequently needs a glitzy get-up for the symphony and opera. "I will never go buy another dress from a department store again."
"Our customers leave feeling unique," says Guidace. "They know they're not [just] one in 2,000, that's why."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
