Carrie Underwood's fashionista legacy explored at Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Carrie Underwood's legacy as an award-winning and platinum-selling performer are two of her many building legacies as an acclaimed country superstar.
During Nashville Fashion Week at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, her cultural and industry impact as a fashionista was also explored.
On Sept. 4, Marina Toybina and Maria "Poni" Silver — a Fashion Institute of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology graduate — both members of Underwood's design team and renowned for their work with other artists as well, participated in the museum's Suiting the Sound series. The conversation was moderated by the museum's writer-editor, Angela Stefano Zimmer.
For Zimmer, evolving the conversation past 1940s-era familiar rodeo tailors like Jaime Castaneda, Nudie Cohn, Manuel Cuevas, Bernard "Rodeo Ben" Lichtenstein and Nathan Turk and into the present-day also involves how country couture standards bridge into Silver's work costuming the Nashville Ballet and the many seasons Toybina has worked with the Fox program "The Masked Singer."
Artists like Underwood — via outfits like one loaned by Underwood that she wore for an encore while touring with Guns N' Roses in 2023 — also reflect country as a genre and industry now seamlessly blending with musical cultures and formats far beyond stereotypes and traditions.
Underwood can wear the gown that Marina designed for her for an appearance at the 2015 American Music Awards, but she can also wear skulls and denim for Guns N' Roses, Zimmer says.
"Regardless of what is required, she can meet moments that (to an outside observer) seem to be (as dissimilar as) apples and oranges."
Zimmer then notes that Underwood can sing country ballads and standards authentically, but as an actual fan of rock music, she can also release a song like her 2022 Papa Roach collaboration "Leave a Light on."
'Performance durability, functionality and visual stimulation'
For Toybina, working with Underwood is a far cry from getting her big break styling Britney Spears in her 2007 video for "Piece of Me." Working with Underwood occurred a half-decade following her work with the pop legend as she prepared to embark on her 2012 "Blown Away" concert tour.
In conversation with The Tennessean, Toybina recalls initially being "familiar" with Underwood's music but noting a relatively quick learning curve in understanding what the superstar's country and crossover audiences wanted from her onstage presentation.
Uniquely framing and then elevating the genre's storytelling-driven narratives via her own couture-driven aesthetics arrived via the trust Toybina now shares often with Underwood.
Moreover, for Toybina, understanding that Underwood is a fitness fanatic whose stage presentations have evolved to include Cirque du Soleil-style theatrics has also been significant.
The Emmy-winning costume designer admits that desiring to not "compromise" form for function is a constant stress of working with Underwood. She notes that she often creates (or in some cases recreates) a garment's base fabric to be more flexible and amenable to comfortably moving with her onstage and in conjunction with stage designs.
Whether tailoring a previously designed piece or building something from scratch, her job requires being aware, fast and decisive in her creativity, maintaining an eye for what she refers to as "performance durability, functionality and visual stimulation."
"It's a problem if the artist doesn't feel comfort and stability onstage with their garments," Toybina adds.
"The last thing you want them to think about, or to see occur, is a wardrobe malfunction."
Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency
Silver arrived at working with Underwood after receiving 2018's Nashville Fashion Week Fashion Forward Fund endowment, plus working with artists like Ruby Amanfu, Margo Price and Adia Victoria. Also, designs from her brand, Black by Maria Silver, launched in 2011, have been featured in Elle, Glamour, Vogue and other publications.
Currently, she is the head of wardrobe for Underwood's Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency at Resorts World Theater.
That position entails her lurking on two levels beneath the stage and managing numerous Underwood fashions for the half-dozen or so times the performer does costume changes during her 90-minute show, involving what a press statement highlights as "sequins, fringe, aerialists, acrobats and pyrotechnics," among other effects.
"Because I'm underneath the stage and doing quick changes the whole time (in Vegas), I've never seen the show (from the front of house)," says Silver, laughing.
She and a trio of assistants are handling a series of almost instantaneous costume changes and more often than not, cleaning up and repairing country couture's most infamous accessory, rhinestones.
"Dolly Parton refers to rhinestones that fall off her performance gear as her droppings — as a designer, I'm responsible for not having a heart attack while trying to maintain those performance clothes and re-attaching (those rhinestones)," Silver says.
"There's nothing like hearing a (huge) rhinestone falling to the ground," she adds, sighing with mock exasperation.
'All-out freedom'
There's room for a plethora of fashion and musical expressions in country music, Silver says. Unique, individual expression in the genre can look like traditional country's fringe and rhinestones, or maintaining those traditions can be "unimportant at all."
Silver herself is a longtime punk rock fan of bands like the Misfits and, in her spare time, has played drums for various acts for the past two decades.
Her contribution of the skull-adorned Underwood costuming for the presentation at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum makes sense.
However, via years of recent work with the "Before He Cheats" vocalist, Silver has gained an appreciation for country's sound and fashion vibes.
"When country's culture and songs mix with an artist as talented as (Underwood), it inspires an all-out freedom in its fans that expands across the board," she says.
It's a thought that expands back into, bottom line, the future for country's fashion inspirations as the genre's modern impact continues to spread.
"As long as artists find a happy medium and arrive onstage put together well — whether that represents anything or all of the things — that's always important."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Carrie Underwood designers talk fashion at Country Music Hall of Fame
