How renowned designer Elizabeth Kollo cut a path to fashion and freedom from the fabric of an oppressive society
by CAITLIN FROST
photos by BRIANNE M. WILLS
Unless you lived there, you can’t even imagine,” says fashion designer Elizabeth Kollo, sitting at the kitchen table of her Beaverton, Oregon, home. “You couldn’t trust anybody, not even family,” she continues, her accent tugging at her words. “Everyone was afraid.”
The elegant fifty-seven-year-old has coiffed hair, sharp features, and round hazel eyes. She’s wearing a hand-made, fitted tweed jacket with black lace embroidery on the front panel and bunched loops of wool surrounding the cuffs — the style of a European sophisticate. Kollo, an ethnic Hungarian, lived in Romania until 1984 under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. His regime controlled every aspect of society. Secret police tyrannized the people, threatening them with torture. In Bucharest, the city where Kollo conducted her fashion design business, Ceausescu was accused and convicted of committing acts of genocide. In a controversial coup d’etat in 1989, he and his wife were pursued across the Romanian countryside until captured and executed by a firing squad.
Before the coup and amid the oppression, Kollo flourished as an artist. She established herself as a fashion designer within a small sector of cultural elites in the Romanian capital. Her cotton dresses and hand-dyed garments were in high demand, even among Communist Party members, garnering the designer acclaim and prosperity.
But the wealth of her achievements did not exceed her desire to escape Ceausescu’s tyranny. The oppressive environment prevented Kollo from realizing the kind of life she envisioned for herself — a life that could only be designed in a free society. She planned to escape Romania and never return.
Above: Elizabeth Kollo in her Beaverton, Oregon, studio.
On this damp winter evening inside Kollo’s suburban abode, the Pacific Northwest air and muddy-gray skies are kept at bay. The interior, a festival of orange and yellow walls, is vibrant in contrast to the climate outside. Large paintings share space with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The home feels like a massive fitting room in an upscale boutique. Kollo lives alone now, her three daughters having left the nest. She uses the extra space as a design studio.
Kollo scurries into her kitchen with an energy as dynamic as the room’s decor. She hugs her newest creation, a handbag she was requested to design for the charity event “Power of the Purse.” The event paired local designers with Portland “purse-onalities” to create one-of-a-kind bags, which were auctioned to raise money for Girls Inc. Kollo was matched with her client, Portland philanthropist Arlene Schnitzer.
She fiddles with the work-in-progress like a child exhilarated by a new toy. The purse’s plush, black fabric gathers into a honeycomb pattern decorated by an adornment on the flap. It is a marvel for a first-time handbag design. “Sometimes I feel like I’m getting a fever,” she says of her passion for creating new designs. The self-proclaimed workaholic patterns her couture collections in her home design studio under the label Kollo Originals. Her beaded blouses, wool-embroidered coats, chiffon dresses, and other custom-made pieces are catered toward prominent Portlanders and fashion connoisseurs.
During her upbringing in a repressive society, Kollo used her creativity to entertain herself. Resources were scarce in Eastern Europe after World War II, so she turned the insides of her parents’ kitchen cupboards into makeshift sketch pads. Her favorite things to draw were wedding dresses. When Kollo was thirteen, Communist Party talent scouts selected her to attend a government-run boarding school. She went on to the University of Cluj, where she studied tapestry and fashion design.
In the face of oppression, Kollo found her niche as an architect of contemporary Romanian fashion.
After graduation she became the head pattern maker for a major knitting company. Three years later, she decided it was time to launch her own business. She produced designs and sold them to government-owned shops that taxed 40 percent of her sales. Kollo’s clothes immediately generated a buzz.
Pieces went for $2,000 to $3,000 — comparable to the monthly earnings of an engineer in Romania at the time. Her collections were displayed in art exhibitions and hung from gallery walls like canvases. Her dresses were made from hand-dyed, thin-stretched cotton, drawing from her skills with the loom. Layers of textural detail, delicate ruffles, and overlapping fabrics created pieces that complemented a woman’s figure. In the face of oppression, Kollo found her niche as an architect of contemporary Romanian fashion. Limos carried her off to the mansions of Communist Party officials to perform fittings with their wives. She designed specialty pieces for Madam Elena Ceausescu. But in accordance with strict economic policies, Kollo couldn’t earn any income beyond the boutique sales of her merchandise. Socialites bribed her to perform services, and she learned how to work the system.
Above: Kollo sews a purse similar to the one she designed for the Power of the Purse Auction.
Despite her growing demand and fame, the regime barred the expansion of Kollo’s business. Artist household incomes were capped at $10,000 a year and the “economical police” hunted commoners who “led luxurious lives.” Kollo made more than the instituted cap, illegally, by creating multiple copies of certain styles and disregarding government rules regulating the number of pieces she could sell. Store workers gave Kollo her earnings under the table and kept the government’s 40-percent tax. They hid their stolen sums in toilets, flushing the evidence during periodic police raids. When recalling her criminal acts, she clearly justifies her actions. “It forced us to do illicit things,” she says.
Not only was the economy strictly controlled, foreign print materials were either banned or censored. The temperature of household thermostats remained fixed. Hidden audio recording devices lay scattered among the street-side trees to listen in on the conversations of passersby. Ethnic racism pervaded the country and created deep divisions among Romanian people. As an ethnic Hungarian with a grandfather who had once drunkenly burned the Romanian flag, Kollo was born with the Ceausescu regime’s target on her back.
Her relationship with the government was complex. On the one hand, she was in high demand for her skills in design. On the other, she was an outcast because of her ethnicity and suspected of political disloyalties. The Party kept a close watch on Kollo, refusing to allow her to leave the country. They knew she might never return.
At twenty-nine, she met Dan Balaesh, a security advisor for President Ceausescu. Balaesh’s father was the general director of Romanian Broadcasting and a close associate of the president. Officials followed Kollo and Balaesh to monitor their budding relationship. The Ministry refused to allow a member of the Romanian Communist Party to associate with an ethnic Hungarian. They forced him to choose: his government or Kollo. When Balaesh chose his future wife, the Ministry expelled him. Although a government target, the couple remained in the country. Soon after their wedding Kollo gave birth to their first daughter, Cristina.
