Point Reyes Light - March 4, 2004

Renowned fashion designer at the Epicenter of Olema

By Ellen M. Shehadeh

As a child, fashion designer, seamstress and business owner Dana Davidson enjoyed rummaging through her grandmother’s cache of sequins and feathers. Much later, Grandmother’s skill as a hat maker (she made hats for the likes of Mae West) meshed with concepts of movement and stretching taken from Aikido as inspiration for her own designs.

Epicenter, Davidson’s colorful Olema store, is filled with an eclectic array of garments, many with flowing lines, intense colors and sensually textured fabrics. She also carries chunky necklaces, unusual buttons and other accessories along with a few oddities like finger-shaped wall hooks. Flags of many nations and books by Michael Moore are her "political forum."

Self-taught designer

Davidson has owned Epicenter for 14 years and is largely self -taught. Her foray into the world of fashion began when she made her first dress at age eleven. At twenty she already had her own business, air brushing and silk screening tee shirts. When she arrived in West Marin from the Los Angeles area twenty-eight years ago, it was "love at first sight."

Many of Davidson’s customers are tourists, but she also describes "an incredible and still-growing clientele from the Bay Area and beyond." Because West Marin is such an appealing destination, many of her tourist customers return year after year, and have become friends. Occasionally, however, towards the end of the tourist season, Davidson can become "burned out." People who rush in to use the bathroom or shout through the door for directions to Bolinas, with the car still running, sometimes test her patience. Davidson has been known to offer them pointers in etiquette.

Davidson is admittedly "down on the fashion business," a contrarian view from someone who makes her living in retail. She renounces the industry’s pressure to constantly spend on the latest styles. Instead, she values clothing with enduring appeal, like her favorite twenty-year old dress that she wore recently to the New Year’s Eve gala at the Dance Palace.

That’s not to say that she doesn’t appreciate contemporary designers like Jean Paul Gautier, for his "wild and unpredictable" designs and capacity "to break all the rules." Other faves include Betsy Johnson, Versace and Marc Jacobs. What appeals to Davidson is "putting unusual colors and patterns together, putting a twist in things."

Store’s charm

Adjacent to the store, her spacious, light-filled work studio overflows with bolts of decorative fabrics. There she and her assistant design, cut out and sew garments on the four sewing machines. The workspace walls reflect her aesthetic: a small array of paintings, mostly done by Davidson, photographs of favorite outdoor places and even a snapshot of Sigmund Freud to whom she looks for guidance. "Sewing is so unbelievably challenging. Sometimes I need analysis"

Davidson and her husband, Michel Venghiattis often travel both for business and pleasure. In her spare moments she enjoys their home in Nicasio which she and Venghiattis built mostly by themselves. For the past two years she has been a Latin DJ on KWMR, but confines salsa dancing to her kitchen, and occasionally supermarket aisles. Her son and daughter-in- law and her two grandchildren live in Inverness Park.

Davidson, along with Inverness resident Molly Boyce, recently created a dress for last Sunday’s Academy Awards. Molly’s husband, Chris, was up for three Oscars for Return of the King. Perhaps you saw the dress.

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