Claire Hummel grew up in Los Angeles, studied illustration at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), and ended up in the lovely, verdant Pacific Northwest making video games for Microsoft Studios. Claire might be best known for her series of Disney Princesses in historical costuming, which she’s been working on for the past year and a half.
Aside from art, Claire also makes costumes! Spurred on by the fact that she was surrounded by a ton of immensely talented seamstresses in her group of friends, a lot of the pieces Claire sews are cosplay – meant to be worn to comic conventions. Claire has also designed a number of original Victorian/steampunk outfits as well.
Claire currently lives in Redmond, WA with her two snakes- Xocoyotzin, a Nicaraguan dwarf boa, and Rodney, a Pearl Island boa. They’re both sweet, and very accomplished huggers.
On Claire’s first pair of Fluevogs:
I first heard about Fluevog Shoes while I was at RISD, jealously perusing the website at my friends’ behest, but I only bought my first pair of Fluevogs (a very modest pair of Earth Angel Mihrs) after graduating and moving to Washington in 2008. Having disposable income had a lot to do with it, as did having a store a stone’s throw away in downtown Seattle. Accessible Fluevogs can be a dangerous temptation, but I’ve been pretty disciplined and only own one other pair- some Frontier Hi Hudsons, which are coincidentally on my feet as I write this.
On entering the FluevogCreative contest:
I first found out about the contest from two of your previous winners- Vera Brosgol and Lucy Knisley, both amazing artists with amazing entries. The siren call of a pile of Fluevogs in your future is tough to resist, especially when you get to draw sweet shoes to get there.
On how long Claire’s creative took:
I’ve sketched out ideas for the past four or so FluevogCreative contests, but I could never find the time to finish anything to the point where I could submit it. Thanks to serendipity more than anything, I finally had a few nights in a row afterwork, where I could kick this thing out; a few days of doing the heavy lifting, followed by a week or so of staring at it, showing it to friends, and tweaking it until I was happy.
On the inspiration behind her winning ad Rainy Day Fluevogs:
I loved the Truth Genevieves this time around, so I wanted to design something that showed them off in all their colourful glory- a generally warm colour scheme, with a punch of blue. The concept of a girl dressed up for a day at home grew out of the numerous street fashion blogs I follow; I’m a big fan of people looking amazing when they’re doing the most mundane, comfortable, everyday things.
On what the dreams and future hold for Claire Hummel:
It’s a little implausible considering my current trajectory in the entertainment industry, but some part of me really wants to own a ranch in the southwest, work as an artist-in-residence/part-time National Park ranger, paint plein air landscapes, and pretend to be a cowboy when appropriate. Oh, and I’d have to have a amazing wi-fi connection.
Check out the rest of Claire’s work online at ClaireHummel.com, or the more regularly-updated shoomlah.deviantart.com. If you want to track her down offline, she’ll have a table at next year’s Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, WA.
Keep an eye out in Vice, Applied Arts, and Bust magazines for Claire’s winning design in print.
