Carla Behrle: This store is about two-and-a-half years old. And I’m glad I opened it, because I really like to see who wears the clothes.

And it helps me with my fitting and everything like that. I mean it works both ways; I get to learn who my customer is. And I also get to learn how to improve my fit, and work things out so I can sell more, and do better work.

FF: And do you, on the side, do a costuming, a theatrical costuming project?

Carla Behrle: I do. You know what I’ve been doing more than anything is like music videos.

As I said, I recently did a costume for an artist named Rah Digga. I did this pretty wild costume. She wanted kind of Metropolis, like that movie poster for Metropolis. I did all the leather jackets for the Victoria’s Secret Angels 2000 campaign that they wore on that TV ad.

FF: You’ve got to get a lot of mileage out of that, right?

Carla Behrle: Oh God, when they sent me this tape I couldn’t believe it. Because people have been talking to me about the commercial. And I did a costume for the movie Studio 54. For Ryan Philippe.

FF: And for Pam Anderson’s Barbed Wire, was the famous leather outfit yours?

Carla Behrle: They compiled that outfit from Dream Dresser in LA. And they must have gotten ahold of the stuff from that store, and we rented Barbed Wire, and there she is. I think the bodice was made custom for her by somebody out in LA. But then everything else she’s got on is like stuff that they must have picked up at the store in LA. Which was great, because that’s what you saw. Because she’s just fighting and shooting at people, right? So it was really -- it looked great.

FF: And are there any other kinds of skins that you work in?

Carla Behrle: I make accessories out of snake skin.

FF: The wrist band that was on your right arm when I met you, was that …

Carla Behrle: That was cobra.

FF: That’s really sensational.

Carla Behrle: And I also use a hand-painted whipsnake, which is really beautiful. I’ve used python for things. I mean that’s really for exotic stuff; mostly I just use kind of basic snakes.

FF: And occasionally you use tooled leather as well, right?

Carla Behrle: I use novelties when they’re available and there’s something that I like. I’ll get a novelty that’s either tooled or metallic. Pearlized. I mean there are so many finishes available now in leather that it’s kind of mind boggling.

FF: You spent a lot of growing-up time travelling around the country with your family. How many years did you do that? And how old were you?

Carla Behrle: Oh I believe we started out when I was really young, probably like seven or eight. And I think until probably I was about sixteen or seventeen. And we traveled a lot with a Winnebago. Which was really great. I mean it’s something that was just -- I mean I was really lucky.

FF: You were.

Carla Behrle: I was really, really lucky. I don’t think I realized it at the time. But you know, looking back I was really lucky to have that opportunity to travel like that. Because I think now the only people that do that are like retirees with a ton of money.

FF: Did your parents decide to not worry about structured school and just take you to see the world?

Carla Behrle: Well basically things were kind of arranged around the school year, but if we missed a few weeks on either end, it wasn’t really made that big of a deal. Because I was also like a grade ahead most of the time that I was in school. And I graduated high school early, and so it really didn’t impact me.

FF: Your parents sound like really amazing people.

Carla Behrle: Well, they’re kind of weird, because they’re not like hippies or beatniks or anything. They’re actually of an older generation than that. Because I have a sister who’s much older than me, and so I think they were kind of like, my father had the opportunity to take off, because the family business had closed up, and you know he didn’t have any work for a while. But he had some money saved up. So that’s what started the whole thing off, was he took the opportunity to just like travel.

FF: And tell me what were some of the places that were the most memorable for you.

Carla Behrle: Well, Mexico. I really loved Mexico. Mexico and Baja, California. And the last year we traveled, we actually ditched the Winnebago and went to Europe for a 300 year family reunion.

FF: In what country?

Carla Behrle: In Germany. It was kind of a fluky thing. My grandmother went through her attic, cleaned out her attic, and pulled out this old family tree. And said, gee, the guy at the bottom is somebody famous, because he had a fancy crest around his name. And she said I know he’s somebody famous, and that’s why he’s got the crest around his name. So me and my brother looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I don’t know why. But there he was. He had like three pages in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

And for another strange reason, I don’t know why, I don’t what possessed my father, he wrote to the town that the family originated from. And this is not anything he ever would have done normally. I don’t know to this day what possessed him. He’s not a letter writing sit down and find out what’s going on type of person. But he wrote to this town, and next thing we know about a month-and-a-half later we got a package of all these like reproductions of posters and the programs and all the ceremonies from the two hundred year anniversary ...

FF: Incredible ...

Carla Behrle: ... of this guy’s death. This guy named Grimmelshausen. He was a writer. And he was considered Germany’s Shakespeare. He wrote, from what I understand, the first autobiographical political satire, and a whole bunch of other things. And he also wrote it in German as opposed to Latin. So he got a lot of flack for that. And during his lifetime it was translated into many, many, many languages.

FF: And this was in the 1600’s?

Carla Behrle: Yeah. He died in 1670 some time.

It was just wild that we found all this out. And I’ve read -- I’ve only been able to find one translation of this one book, and it’s very much like reading Monty Python.

FF: Really. What’s the title of it in English?

Carla Behrle: It’s called Adventures of a Simpleton in English. And it’s really funny. Which is weird because it’s so old. But it’s the story that Candide is based on.

And it was really a lot of fun to get to go, having a reason to go to Europe, and then the time in this one town.

FF: And what was the sort of festival or ceremony like?

Carla Behrle: They just basically had a big like Oktoberfest. You know, they roasted an ox. They set up a tent. One wall of the tent was big beer kegs. They closed down the town for like five days. Every morning they had like a cannon salute. And it was really fun.

FF: I bet. You were sort of the honored guests?

Carla Behrle: Yes... yeah.

FF: Because you were the American branch of the family...

Carla Behrle: ... branch of the family, yeah. It was really fun. It was really, really wonderful.

FF: And what part of Germany is this?

Carla Behrle: It’s near Baden. In the Black Forest, yeah, really beautiful.

And then we met family from there, and we found out more of the history of the family, and it was really great to get to do that.

FF: And how did you and your brother feel when you found three pages about your great, great, great, great whatever?

Carla Behrle: Oh, we were really excited.

FF: How often does that happen?

Carla Behrle: The whole thing was like just this series of flukes that for some strange reason got followed up on; which is not a normal occurrence.

FF: Yes, because your grandmother could have just looked at the family tree and thought, oh, that’s nice.

Carla Behrle: Right, which is usually what she would have done. So for some reason everything lined up right.

FF: Well, that’s ten times more interesting than being in school.