FA S H I O N
Waistless Wonders WITH HER GRANDMOTHER’S FABRICS, GRETTA GARMENTS CHANNELS LAZY GIRL CHIC
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Story by Kristen Foster • Photos by Grace Chetta n an Instagram photo from the recent launch of what Baton Rouge fashion designer Grace Chetta has laughingly dubbed her “post-pandemic transition wear—the waistless wonders collection,” a young woman in a bold, aubergine floral, a-line dress leans her fresh, makeup-free face toward a tangle of wisteria dangling from her fingertips. She’s inhaling, smiling with her eyes closed. The caption reads: “Always one to stop and smell the flowers.” It’s a fitting motto for Chetta’s intended client, who she endearingly calls “The Gretta Woman.” Laidback but elegant, The Gretta Woman can effortlessly transition her look from a posh garden party to a movie night on the couch. “It’s lazy girl chic,” joked Chetta of the aesthetic guiding her line of inclusive, sustainable women’s wear, Gretta Garments—and especially her most recent collection. “I don’t want anything to be too serious. Feeling comfortable and good in your body and being real—that’s what’s most important to me.” Gretta, a portmanteau of Grace Chetta’s first and last names, captures the whimsical spirit of its creator with free-flowing floral frocks. Authenticity has never been hard to come by for Chetta, the youngest child
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of four, who playfully attributes her freedom to pursue a creative occupation, at least in part, to the impressive professional successes of her older siblings, who work as engineers and doctors. “It kind of takes the pressure off of me,” she quipped. In reality, Chetta’s desire to design clothing took root in childhood, and, she explained, “I just never grew out of it.” To call Chetta a scrappy designer is more than just an irresistible indulgence in wordplay. She recalled squirreling away scraps of fabric from projects in college, wondering, “How can I reuse this?” During her final year in the fashion design program at LSU, she created a stunning collection from repurposed salvaged denim, which took home the top honor at her senior fashion show. Though her design aesthetic has evolved since college and further developed during her three years as a technical assistant to the New Orleans designer Suzanne Perron, Chetta’s commitment to sustainability has never wavered. She officially launched her brand in 2018. Her affinity for scraps became especially useful during 2020, when face masks became mandatory, and the demand far outweighed the supply. “Fabric stores were running out of cotton,
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but I had so much stored up I thought, ‘I’ll just use mine.’” What followed was a formidable run of vibrantly patterned Gretta Garments masks that gave back to the community with a one-purchasedone-donated distribution model. Now that the need for face coverings is, fortunately, waning, Chetta has been busy
designing custom wedding dresses for private clients and celebrating her latest collection, featuring unstructured dresses that will have even the most zealous quarantine sweatpants devotees confidently rejoining the world of in-person social engagements. “Of course, all of my dresses have pockets,” she assured. Such a resourceful detail would have likely pleased Gretta Garments’ posthumous benefactor, Chetta’s paternal grandmother, Jay Chetta, whose stash of fabric has supplied the materials for all of the line’s creations so far. “She was a doctor, very well-read, intelligent and ambitious. She sewed, but not as much as she would have liked, I think,” Chetta said of her late grandmother. “She loved beautiful things, like fabrics, and she collected them all her life.” Pulled exclusively from Jay’s collection, all Gretta Garments pieces are limited-run. “Some of them I only have enough for a few dresses,” she explained. “When it’s gone, I can’t get more.” Working from a finite range of patterns challenges Chetta as a designer, especially when her idea of beauty clashes with the original collector’s. “There are a lot of ugly prints in there,” Chetta confessed. “The challenge is to design for the fabric and make something cool and groovy out of it.” She is particularly influ-
