A flair for the dramatic
Houston’s Enid Almanza sees outrageous possibility in all sorts of materials for avant-garde creations
There’s nothing ordinary about Enid Almanza.
Almanza wears fur, feathers, bodacious wraps and lace gloves to the grocery store. And like the eccentric designer Karl Lagerfeld, Almanza is rarely seen without his dark sunglasses. Even the fashion models who work with him say they don’t see his eyes much.
“I don’t do this to be pretentious,” says the 26-year-old fashion designer, who’s a Mexico native. “I’ve always been dramatic, but there’s always a meaning. If I wear a mask of roses, it’s about the story of my grandmother in Mexico who loved roses. Everything you see is based on a moment I’ve lived.”
His fashion brand, House of Enid, specializes in creating pieces with an avant-garde spin. So there are golden masks made of zippers and tall crowns made of clothespins. There are body vests that look like armor made from plastic tubing and dresses crafted of vinyl and aluminum.
In 2013, Lady Gaga wore a pair of his sunglasses made of soda cans for the “Lady Gaga and the Muppets Holiday Spectacular.” That put Almanza on the map internationally, but still, in Houston, there was a puzzled response to his work.
“I was too outrageous, and Houston didn’t get it. Sometimes I doubted myself, but I treated what I did like I was Chanel even though I had $5 in my pocket.”
So Almanza poured everything into his first fashion show held at the Heights Theater. That’s where he met creative partner Evey Giron, a graduate of the High School for Performing and Visual Arts who specialized in restoring vintage clothes.
She happened to be dropping off a garment for a client at the theater when she saw photos of Almanza’s work and was then introduced to the designer.
“I was shocked, moved and inspired by what I saw,” Giron said. “I knew I wanted to help with his work, so I went home with him.”
Actually, Giron spent the next three days in Almanza’s home studio helping him sew and construct garments for his show. The two worked nonstop, surviving on “Red Bull and doughnuts” to get the work done in time. But they almost missed their big moment. The day of the show, both Almanza and Giron overslept and nearly missed it. “I fell asleep over the sewing machine,” Giron said with a laugh.
Still, the House of Enid’s debut show, held on Mother’s Day 2014 to a packed audience of 500, changed Almanza’s life: “It took me from being an amateur designer to a true fashion house.”
Afterward, Almanza set off for Europe for three years, traveling to Italy, Spain, France and Germany to hone his skill and expand his brand. He returned to Houston even more focused on his craft and opened the House of Enid at Sabine Street Studios, where he uses a variety of textiles — vinyl, scuba fabric, aluminum, plastic tubing, knitting yarn, sequins, crystals, pearls, etc. — to create his visions, from $25 photo prints to $5,000 masks and dresses.
Almanza and Giron are currently working on the “Creation” collection with a fashion show planned for later this fall.
Almanza credits the House of Enid’s growth to its 27,000 Instagram followers. “Our success comes from the diversity of people seeing their reflections of themselves in what we do. The House of Enid is a shining light of hope.”
With that, Almanza gently adjusts his black rooster-feather jacket on his shoulders.
Lagerfeld would be impressed.