Photography Courtesy of Raquel Allegra

Even your ex-boyfriend’s tattered tee, with its stains and faint smell of Old Spice, can’t tell a story like a Raquel Allegra garment. The Los Angeles-based designer makes her couture using shirts from the County Jail, weaving tales from a dark but quintessential reality of the city. “It definitely felt strange at first,” says Allegra, “but I took to recycled prison shirts out of necessity. I’m a textile shopper — when I shop I touch everything. So I was just hunting for that perfectly distressed feel.” Oddly enough, her meticulous sense of touch led her to the clink.
    As remarkable as the personal stories behind the shirts themselves, Allegra’s intricate handpicking, hand dying, and thread-by-thread deconstruction process can take weeks to complete. But for Allegra, the resulting piece — more reminiscent of cobwebs than prison garb — is worth the painstaking effort. Her labor of love seems to satisfy customers who, like herself, have a taste for clothing made with originality and thought. So it’s not surprising that tastemakers have gravitated to the brand of draped, sexy shirts, dresses, and scarves. Each item different from the next, Allegra’s creations are given new life by the wearer in a unique convergence of past, present, and future.