Bend News

Saturday Morning Profile: Halle Balou

Fashion Designer Helps Set Bend’s Trends

By Joseph Friedrichs, 2-03-07

Halle Balou hates sleeping at night. So while most Central Oregonians are lost in a deep slumber, Balou cranks up the techno music and spends the night rummaging through stacks of vintage clothing, searching for that perfect piece of material to inspire her next newfangled dress or voguish shirt.

“I’m a night owl,” Balou admits, gently moving the material of a sparkling red dress between her fingers. “There are no distractions then. When everyone else is sleeping, that’s when my creative juices start flowing.”

Balou, 33, is the owner of Magnolia, a trendsetting clothing store located in downtown Bend. A self proclaimed “pack rat,” Balou’s store is filled with vintage clothing and other pieces she has created herself - most of them intensely late at night. Magnolia was named in honor of Balou’s cat, who bears the same name. Magnolia, the cat, is a geriatric old blind creature that has taught Balou “what dedication and commitment mean.” Balou says she named the store after the cat because it took those same values to start her own business.

When Balou walks through her store, a wild assortment of clothes dangle from hangers and the walls. Exotic jewelry drape from the racks or sit inside glass-protected cases. Near the back of the store a collection of Balou’s half-completed projects rest in lumpy piles. As she takes a seat at her white sewing machine, Balou gently brushes a strand of brown hair from her face. Spools of yarn and string coat the nearby wall. As she begins to sew, Balou is engaged with a friend in a discussion about getting older. Between sentences, Balou laughs with the kind of carefree ambition you might expect from an untroubled teen. It’s a contagious laugh, and everyone in the room can’t help but join in.

“Your baby fat is all gone,” Balou says to the friend. “You’re looking good.”

It was five years ago when Balou torpedoed into Bend. Prior to that, she spent most of her life in California’s Bay Area, discovering her passions and place in the world. Never taking much interest in formal education, Balou opted to skip out on her last couple years of high school in order to learn her life lessons outside the classroom. By the age of 17 she was a freewheeling spirit with nothing to lose.

It was around this time that Balou met her close friend Jeffrey Iverson.

“Halle was into the grunge-punk scene when we first met,“ Iverson remembers. “She was listening to the Beastie Boys and always wearing boxer shorts and old t-shirts.”

Iverson describes Balou as one of the “most creative individuals” he has ever met. Everything, from dinner parties to nights on the town, boast a certain flare when Balou is around, Iverson says.

During her late teens, Balou formed a deep interest in reptiles and amphibians. She had pet snakes, lizards and a turtle. She was fascinated with animals and their habits and considered devoting her life to studying them.

After several years of rocking the grunge scene in the Bay Area, Balou came to a crossroads. She wanted to start a career, but was torn between fashion designing or studying and working with animals. After weighing her options, Balou enrolled at The Fashion Institute Of Design And Merchandising in San Francisco. She turned Vegan for a stint, and in the process set all of her animals free. The pet turtle was placed at a small pond in an Oakland cemetery. An assortment of reptiles and snakes were given away or simply set loose. Obviously, it was an interesting time in Balou’s life.

While critter free and earning her associate’s degree in fashion design in San Francisco, Balou realized she had indeed chosen the correct career path.

“Fashion design was the roots of what I wanted to do in life,” she says.

Following graduation from the fashion institute, Balou once again faced the ever-daunting question of “what next?” A number of her friends, a small group Balou refers to as “the tribe,” had relocated to Bend, hoping to escape the congestion of city life. Yearning for such peace, Balou decided to pack her bags and head north.

Chemynne Perlingieri, a member of “the tribe,” has known Balou for the past decade. Along with several other friends, Perlingieri worked “relentlessly to get Halle to move to Oregon.”

“Halle is an extremely dynamic personality,“ Perlingieri says. “And it was important to have a friend around that is as crazy and motivated as I am.”

Perlingieri, the creative director of Mulch Design in Bend, calls Balou’s fashion designs “a trend setter in Bend.”

“Halle is always pushing the envelope,” Perlingieri says. “She has kind of turned this town around in an approach to fashion. We needed more funkmiesters in Bend.”

Although Magnolia has been open for more than two years, the store did not always look the way it does now. When Balou first purchased the underground building, it was comparable to a “grandma dungeon,” she says.

A complete overhaul of the store’s interior allowed for more natural lighting, storage space and “a totally different feel to the place.”

In addition to her career, Balou is an avid reader (currently she’s re-reading Dharma Punx), lover of music and dancing, horseback rider, hula-hooper and a “hot-spring junkie.” She has traveled extensively throughout the world, including Baja and Italy. If things roll according to plan, her next stop will be Spain. Or maybe Hawaii.

During the past 15 years, Iverson says he has witnessed Balou mature into a personality mixing bowl of Lara Flynn Boyle and Ani DiFranco. That interesting combination has made nearly every one of Iverson’s male friends who’s met Balou to ask with wonder-lust: “Wow. Who was that Halle girl?”

Regarding Bend, Balou says she enjoys the tightness of the community, but admits it can be overwhelming at times.

As Iverson puts it: “I think Bend is good for Halle’s heart, but not always for her mind.”

Although there have been occasional moments of yearning for city life, the high times far outweigh the low, Balou says. One of her more memorable nights in Bend, she explains while trying not to laugh, was when she served as the “raffle boy” for a drag show at The Grove.  Using pieces of her old dreadlocks as makeshift beard, Balou played the role of Earl The Painter throughout the show. Her acting was so good, Balou says, unable to hold back the laughter, that most of the crowd believed she was a man.

It’s nights such as the drag show that prove what a diverse, open-minded person Balou is, Perlingieri says.

“Halle has that crazy side, but there’s also an extreme sweetness and softness to her,” Perlingieri says. “She’s influenced me a great deal in life. I would give her my house if it needed to happen.”

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.