Elisabethan: "clothes with a history".

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Small biz COLORADO COOL STUFF

In 1996, Elisabeth Delehaunty moved to Colorado from the East Coast and launched her clothing company, Elisabethan, from Crested Butte. Sourcing her fabric from the racks at thrift shops, the "recycler/designer" started patching together and repurposing old clothes into entirely new wearables.

"I started buying stuff for the fabric instead of the garment, and it just snowballed," she says. Relocating to Paonia in 2000, Delehaunty today typically employs a staff of two or three people to make all sorts of shirts, skirts, hats and scarves from used and damaged clothes.

"As we get bigger, it's less realistic for me to do individualized...