Our Studio
Rita Designs is a specialty artist clothier serving clients desiring extraordinary outerwear. We do only one-of-a-kind, made-to-measure and truly limited edition designs. Although our clients live all across the nation, our focus is on creating sophisticated leather outerwear for women loving the Rocky Mountain lifestyle. That the designs also look eye catching in the city just makes them more valuable to their owners.
Rita Johnson is the chief designer and artist of Rita Designs. Fred Johnson is co-designer and materials manager. We produce every garment, one at a time, with Fred cutting and Rita sewing. The meticulous detailing is then done by hand. Production is intentionally limited to only a few dozen garments each year.
We produced our first coats in the Catskill Mountains of New York more than twenty-five years ago. For the past fifteen years our design studio has been nestled Teton Valley, happily situated between the world renowned Teton Range on the east and the magnificent Big Hole Mountains to the west.
Our creative passion is designing spirited, artful, and innovative clothing that reflects the freedom and beauty of our dramatic western landscape. We strive to create luxurious clothing for the woman who loves the unique; clothing that distinguishes its owner- quietly and naturally. Ideally, it should be stylish, memorable and comfortable. Plus, it should easily stand up to the Rockies’ worst weather.
Our medium is leather. Over the course of history fine leather and its cousin, wool-sided shearling, have been the preferred materials for the very finest outerwear garments. Today’s premium leathers and shearlings are incredibly light and soft and sew up into garments of unsurpassed comfort. Our clients deserve the best, so we utilize the same gorgeous, soft, sensuous leathers from the very finest tanneries of old Europe and modern America being used by the big fashion houses in New York and Milan.
A Hollywood wardrobe designer once let us in on a little secret that explains why the stars wear leather so much, both on and off the screen: “Leather garments always make the wearer look more beautiful. They give the star, extra star power.” The rest of us get that extra boost too when we slip into a good leather or shearling jacket.