The Smithsonian Craft Show Is Coming

A spotlight on artist Starr Hagenbring

SPRING, glorious spring. Politics notwithstanding, it's when the District of Columbia puts on its best face for visitors and residents alike. The cherry blossoms may be gone, but one of the signature events of the season is still in the offing. I’m talking about the Smithsonian Craft Show, which by the way, is celebrating its 42nd year bringing the country's leading contemporary crafts artists to town.

Did I mention there was fashion?

I recently chatted with Starr Hagenbring, the woman whom Ornament Magazine called the “rockstar of wearable art.”

A favorite at the show, Hagenbring combines years of study (in archaeology and history), sewing and tailoring skills with an impeccable sense of design to create her hand-painted coats of many colors.

A native of Chicago, she majored in design at the University of Kansas, then moved to New York at a time when rents were still reasonable and opened a shop in Soho, making and selling elaborately hand-painted and-beaded jackets and gowns to stores such as the boutique-oriented Henri Bendel (before it was snapped up by the parent company of The Limited).

A love of color permeates her work: "Color has a medicinal quality. There's a reason a yellow room will make you happy and that if you paint your ceiling a peach tone, you will look better. It's a sneaky little mood enhancer."

“This adorable little waisted coat is an assemblage of vintage and new fabrics and then is completely painted on top with either gold or black patterning. So you have an overlay pattern painted over the top of all the existing pattern. It's lined in silk.” "It's like a puzzle," says Hagenbring. “So much fun.”

From dung beetles and skulls to ancient religions and Old Masters, Hagenbring employs a wide range of iconography on fabrics —often vintage—that she paints, cuts, pieces and stitches into different patterns. Her most recent work is laser-focused on the world's most pressing problems, especially climate change and women's rights.

The“Worldwide Championships” coat is the first story coat Hagenbring did on climate change. Entirely hand painted on silk, the words are machine embroidered. It sold to a collector in 2022.

“When last year’s United Nations report on climate change came out, something clicked for me. “The world wasn’t waking up to the problem that we weren’t going to survive [if we didn’t do something about it.] The whole point of my work became getting people to talk about it.” In the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the first women’s rally in DC in 2016 (remember the pussy hats?), she designed several pussy jackets with magenta collars. She named her most recent work satirizing the recent proposed restrictions on abortion after a Monty Python song.

“Every Sperm is Sacred” is a musical theatre number from Monty Python’s final film The Meaning of Life. The purpose of the song is to ridicule the Catholic Church’s encouragement of its members to avoid birth control. The jacket is hand painted, with painted lace overlay and machine embroidery, including the script.

Hagenbring's latest story piece was finished right after the U.N. climate talks. It's entirely hand painted on silk. A pricey piece, it sells for $7,000, $1,000 of which goes to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

If she's not on the road for shows, Hagenbring is designing and helping to run the New Orleans eyewear and fashion boutique, Art & Eyes, she operates with her partner, Paul. The shop's clientele comes from all over the world.

When I asked her what keeps her returning to the DC craft show, she has nothing but praise for its “unbelievable quality.” [“I’m honored] to be named one of the best craftspeople out there. The National Building Museum is epic; the cause is phenomenal. It's a pleasure to be at [the show] and kudos to the people who put it on.”

The Details:

The Smithsonian Craft Show opens to the public on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Tickets for the Preview Night Party—from 6 to 9pm on Wednesday, May 1—are $250. Preview Party and Visionary Artist Reception—from 5 to 6pm—are $500.

Show hours: 10:30am to 5:30pm, Thursday, May 2 to Saturday, May 4; and 11am to 5pm Sunday, May 5. You may use your ticket on the day of your choice.

Admission: $20 at the door or in advance online. $15 per person for groups of 10 or more and students. See all the details and information on special events here.