Creating custom designs.

• Author: Vaught, Susan
• Position: Posh House, sport clothes manufacturer - Company Profile

Deborah Ives' home-based apparel manufacturing business, Posh House, suits mushers, climbers and fashion-conscious customers as far away as the East Coast.

The Eskimo sat in his umiak watching the endless Bering Sea. Cold salt spray covered him as he patiently waited, his rifle across his knees. Sitting still, hunting in the way taught by his elders, his eyes darted back and forth watching for the whale that his village would share. He was a small dot in the huge gray expanse. His colored parka shone bright in the flat daylight.

What does a traditional Eskimo whale hunter have in common with a world-class mountain climber, a paraglider, an Iditarod musher and a wildlife biologist? They are all protected from the elements by arctic gear designed and manufactured by Anchorage-based Posh House.

Posh House owner and founder Deborah Ives recalls that after making a parka for a mushing friend to wear in the 1988 Iditarod, she was encouraged to start her own business. The sled dog driver showed Ives his "old smelly canvas anorak" and asked if she could make him something in a new material while retaining the original style.

Inspired, Ives went to work in a "creative frenzy," she says. After preparing an outer shell, she experimented with different weights of removable liners to compensate for the variety of conditions on the trail.

Ives' friends were excited by the finished product and convinced her to attend the Dog Mushers Symposium in Fairbanks that same year. Displaying a parka and mittens she designed, Ives received four orders, worth about $900, from mushers there.

Since then Ives has shown her arctic gear at the Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage and the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, as well as at other mushing symposiums. She styles her parkas after the traditional Eskimo anorak -- an ancient design that she notes has survived time and provides excellent cover in cold weather. But also, in her own fashion, the designer has added bright colors with contrasting color accents. Ives' trademark is a contrasting chevron on the parkas' capes.

Clement Ungott first met Ives at the Fur Rendezvous in 1989 where he was a representative of the village ivory carvers of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. For him, Ives created a custom anorak to suit his lifestyle, sewing heavy epaulets made of Cordura nylon onto the shoulders to protect the parka when he carries his boat motor.

Ungott says, "The clothes are very warm and meet the specifications of the arctic...