Noelle Tavares stitches Sacramento’s creative community together with wearable art
Noelle Tavares enjoys creating art, but the aspect of the work she especially likes is how customers respond to her wearables crafted under her brand Fine Tuned Inc.
“When I create certain pieces for customers or for clients of mine, the reactions that I do get after I reveal the piece to them … is what really keeps me going,” Tavares says. “It is good to know that it’s appreciated, and they love it and they know this is something originally done for them and only them.”
Raised in South Sacramento and a graduate of Luther Burbank High School, Tavares started her career as a cut-and-sew designer for her vintage line, Faedrah Clothing Co., around 2005. In 2011 she launched her rebrand, concentrating more on wearable art, like art pieces on denim and camouflage jackets. She has continued with this concept, but now also works with incorporating denim into paintings on canvas.
Tavares participates in showcases throughout Sacramento, and her clothing can regularly be found at FreeStyle Clothing Exchange. Her one-of-kind pieces can be purchased on her website.
For custom clients, she sits down with them to brainstorm — but she wants them to trust her to do her own thing. “I like to tell clients, too, that this is like a rendition that I will be doing for them,” she says. “They might give me a picture or something and be like, OK, I want to get this done. So I always like to tell them, well, with my pieces, I always like to not do just a copycat of that actual thing. … I try to flip it into my own perspective, creatively.”
Tavares came up in the local fashion scene in the early 2000s when there were only a handful of local creators and designers in Sacramento, she says. But now the field is becoming more saturated with the influence of social media.
“Nowadays it’s like if you turn to your left or your right, someone is a designer, someone is an artist, someone is a stylist of that manner,” Tavares says. “It’s very common now that you’ll find a lot of people that do what I do. But, at the same time, I feel like I’ve made it to the point in my career that my style is very distinctive.”
Throughout her adulthood, Tavares’ travels took her to Southern California for a stint and then New York almost became home at one point, “because I was really digging the scene out there.” She took trips to the East Coast for her day job — she still works in the fashion retail industry — and elsewhere in the United States. But she always felt pulled back to Sacramento.
Now she wants to pay her success forward. Through Fine Tuned Inc., she hosts several community-oriented gatherings, including a movie night once a month featuring Black classic cinema at a coworking space on Del Paso Boulevard. She also does closet hauls, from clothing and accessories collected through the years, as her way of giving back style-wise and creatively. One of the big things she can do now, she says, is simply give advice to emerging artists and creators — something she didn’t have during her rise.
“I came up during a time where it was kind of like I had to figure it out myself, because I didn’t have anybody to go to, or any kind of peers that were doing the same thing I was doing,” she says. “I pretty much had to teach and learn myself over the years. … Now I look at myself and want to be a vessel to the community and be a helping hand, or something of that manner, to these up-and-coming creators that are out here now.”
Raised in South Sacramento and a graduate of Luther Burbank High School, Tavares started her career as a cut-and-sew designer for her vintage line, Faedrah Clothing Co., around 2005. In 2011 she launched her rebrand, concentrating more on wearable art, like art pieces on denim and camouflage jackets. She has continued with this concept, but now also works with incorporating denim into paintings on canvas.
Tavares participates in showcases throughout Sacramento, and her clothing can regularly be found at FreeStyle Clothing Exchange. Her one-of-kind pieces can be purchased on her website.
For custom clients, she sits down with them to brainstorm — but she wants them to trust her to do her own thing. “I like to tell clients, too, that this is like a rendition that I will be doing for them,” she says. “They might give me a picture or something and be like, OK, I want to get this done. So I always like to tell them, well, with my pieces, I always like to not do just a copycat of that actual thing. … I try to flip it into my own perspective, creatively.”
Tavares came up in the local fashion scene in the early 2000s when there were only a handful of local creators and designers in Sacramento, she says. But now the field is becoming more saturated with the influence of social media.
“Nowadays it’s like if you turn to your left or your right, someone is a designer, someone is an artist, someone is a stylist of that manner,” Tavares says. “It’s very common now that you’ll find a lot of people that do what I do. But, at the same time, I feel like I’ve made it to the point in my career that my style is very distinctive.”
Throughout her adulthood, Tavares’ travels took her to Southern California for a stint and then New York almost became home at one point, “because I was really digging the scene out there.” She took trips to the East Coast for her day job — she still works in the fashion retail industry — and elsewhere in the United States. But she always felt pulled back to Sacramento.
Now she wants to pay her success forward. Through Fine Tuned Inc., she hosts several community-oriented gatherings, including a movie night once a month featuring Black classic cinema at a coworking space on Del Paso Boulevard. She also does closet hauls, from clothing and accessories collected through the years, as her way of giving back style-wise and creatively. One of the big things she can do now, she says, is simply give advice to emerging artists and creators — something she didn’t have during her rise.
“I came up during a time where it was kind of like I had to figure it out myself, because I didn’t have anybody to go to, or any kind of peers that were doing the same thing I was doing,” she says. “I pretty much had to teach and learn myself over the years. … Now I look at myself and want to be a vessel to the community and be a helping hand, or something of that manner, to these up-and-coming creators that are out here now.”