Shiree Houf greets the HighBall Halloween audience as she presents her Dinosaur Tea Party Collection on the costume couture stage. Credit: Courtesy of Tony Bentivegna
HighBall Halloween set the spooky tone in the Short North Saturday, but the night was far from frightening for freelance costume designer and Ohio State alum Shiree Houf.
Held every year, HighBall Halloween is an elaborate event that celebrates Columbus’ fashion community with an avant-garde costume design contest, according to its website. This year, Houf took home her third first-place finish with a dinosaur-tea-party-themed collection, she said.
“It sounds weird, but it feels like a punch to the gut in the best way possible,” Houf said. “It knocks the wind out of you like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it,’ but in a really good way.”
Having competed in HighBall Halloween’s annual contest for 13 years, Houf said the creativity that ultimately pushes her to create a grand theme each competition is the same creativity she remembers having at a young age.
“When I was five or six, I was like, ‘I’m gonna make shoes out of cereal boxes,’” Houf said. “It didn’t turn out great, but I’ve always been a maker, and I’ve enjoyed it.”
Houf said this memory now strikes a particular chord for her, as a mom of two young daughters, who said they were both “really happy” when they saw their mom win.
Houf said her daughters Ara Houf, 11, and Eme Houf, 7, each share whimsical creativity of their own. In fact, they are already planning their mom’s next creation.
“Magical ponies with people that ride them,” Eme Houf said. “I want a big person to dress as a rainbow, a very light rainbow, and that will show that it’s the leader. Then there’s gonna be a part of the rainbow red and the other ponies will be other colors.”
Ara Houf’s suggestion was a bit more straightforward.
“I want fairies,” Ara Houf said.
Shiree Houf’s creativity extended past her formative years as she explored her passion for theater at Miami University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s in theatre. But it wasn’t until she began pursuing a master’s in design at Ohio State that she realized her calling was in costume design.
Shiree Houf said her time at Ohio State cultivated a strong network of people who were essential in getting her to where she is now.
“My advisor that worked with me all throughout my graduate school experience taught me the rightest way she knew how to do something, and I really appreciate that because a mentor that’s gonna guide you and push you to strive to perfect your art as much as possible is amazing.”
Her best friend Davida Popik, whom she met during her college years, said the creative gift Shiree Houf has was present from the moment they met their freshman year.
“It was always obvious that she had this amazing mind for creativity, for making something interesting, for finding parallels and terrible puns the whole way through — terrible but funny, but still terrible, like endlessly, she could have a pun-off,” Popik said.
Shiree Houf said she agreed her puns constitute a large portion of her HighBall Halloween themes each year. In fact, her characters for this year’s dinosaur tea party were all a play on words — “TEA-Rex,” “Velociraptor-TORTE,” “Brachio-SAUCER” and “Tricera-POTS.”
Shiree Houf said puns weren’t the only source of inspiration throughout this collection, though.
Shiree Houf said this collection is especially near to her heart, as she took inspiration from both the “Dinosaur Tea Party” board game her husband and children picked up years ago and her deceased grandmothers, who Shiree Houf said she paid tribute to by using table linens, tablecloths, table runners, cloth napkins and dish towels she inherited.
“This collection is kind of a perfect storm because I had a lot of fun, I pushed myself artistically, but this was also a healing project,” Shiree Houf said. “It was like feeling connected to my family with the board game subject matter while also using all these lovely materials that my grandmas left me.”
Shiree Houf said creating this ‘perfect storm’ within her collections and her general work environment is beneficial to her mental health.
“I am diagnosed with Bipolar One,” Shiree Houf said. “Curating a space around myself in my studio definitely helps to provide a grounding center for myself, especially when I struggle with imposter syndrome, or if I’m in a down swing, I come down to my happy space where I’m surrounded by things that either inspire me or make me remember the things that I have worked hard to achieve.”
Short North Alliance executive director Betsy Pandora said Shiree Houf’s accomplishments are a big reason the team values HighBall Halloween.
Specifically, Pandora said Shiree Houf competed for the first time in the WOW: World of WearableArt competition in New Zealand.
“I think the impact that HighBall leads is both large and small,” Pandora said. “Small in the sense that one creative person can discover their joy, perfect their craft and then be seen on an international stage, but large because the proceeds that we use to generate impact each year through HighBall are seen every day in the way that we can amplify the number of artists in our community.”
Shiree Houf said though she was full of excitement when she heard she was selected for the WOW:World of WearableArt competition, she knew she had to lean on her community to make her dream a reality.
In doing so, she said she ultimately walked away with a lesson greater than fashion.
“The way my community, friends, family came together to help me raise that money just touched me to realize that they believe in me, that they care about me, that they lift me up as an artist and as an individual,” Shiree Houf said. “Because I struggle with bipolar, going through those ups and downs are hard, so to have an experience that I can look back on and be like, ‘No, no, no, you do good work, don’t let the bad, mean voices in your head get you down,’ taught me professionally how to improve my art, but will also last with me for a long time to improve my well-being and my mental health.”
Papiko said she knows the success Shiree Houf has had thus far is just the beginning.
“She’s not done; this is just a continuation of her being magnificent and creative,” Shiree Houf said. “Think Andrew Lloyd Webber minus the money, plus the sewing machine — it’s fantastical and amazing how she has a thought, brings it to life and other people get to see what’s inside her head.”
Shiree Houf said she hopes to continue to grow as an artist.
“I hope as an artist that I always strive to do better,” Shiree Houf said. “I view that as part of what I wanna do as a human being in general.”
Ultimately, Shiree Houf said she believes the best advice for aspiring artists is to not be afraid of failure.
“Just go for it and do the thing,” Shiree Houf said. “With anything, the most they can say is ‘no,’ so why not try? Why not you?”
For more information about Shiree Houf, including photos of her HighBall Halloween collections over the years, visit her personal website.
