Linda Loudermilk

Nature may be beautiful. But nature is not pretty. Think about it. Domesticate the land: Thresh it, pave it, put up stoplights and call it Sunset Boulevard; nature knows better than all that. In one terrible instant it could all be gone. The foundation shakes. The earth takes the sidewalks into its growling maw. Gone. Later, flowers will grow where once there was a strip mall. And the flowers will be beautiful, because nature makes no apologies for itself. Nature is the original punk.

Linda Loudermilk is too smart to call such an imperious and turbulent thing as nature her 'muse.' All that vastness, all those numberless small symmetries, all the brutality and fragility – nature is, to be sure, the creative source material for Loudermilk's designs. She channels nature's punk energy into clothes of grace and volatility. But nature is less Loudermilk's muse than her major mind-freak. When she patterns a jacket after a waterfall, it's not about making something pretty to wear; it's about holy fearsome awe.

Likewise, the luxury eco™ category Loudermilk invented with the launch of her line wasn't inspired by some predictable sense of patchouli-smelling do-gooderism. The ingenius sustainable fabrics she's developed and sourced for Loudermilk, the brand, reflect the respect Linda Loudermilk, the woman and artist, has for nature.