About

Susanna Evins is the creator and owner of Mountain Mama Originals and Wild Women Fabrics.  Mountain Mama Originals began in 2004 and Wild Women Fabrics in 2017, and were born out of Susanna’s desire to create a product that provides quality, innovation, functionality, and beauty.  In this creation, Susanna wishes to support women, small businesses, and individuality with ethical and environmentally-friendly business practices.

The process:
Each piece starts with the creativity of Susanna.  Much like the start of this operation, the process for each piece begins with an idea and evolves.  Susanna travels from her Alaskan home on the Kenai Peninsula to places like Peru and Los Angeles to find the perfect fabrics to offer her clientele.  In the shop in Alaska, women work together while sharing laughter, tea, stories, and music.  Throughout the day, many locals pop into the workshop to visit and share.  While working, Susanna and team keep an environmentally-friendly mindset.  All paper is re-used or recycled.  All excess fabric is given to other local artists and efforts.  Depending on the fabric size, it is moved through the community to be used for scarves, fingerless gloves, dog bed fill, and elementary school art projects.  Once a piece of clothing is finished, it is modeled and shared online to be sold.  Most fabric is kept in the workshop and all is available for sale.

The product:
Every piece of clothing is unique and hand-made.  Susanna likes to think of each piece as “wearable art”.  She collaborates with local artists and has put paintings to fabric.  Susanna works to provide versatile and beautiful clothing made to suit the multi-faceted needs of a typical Alaskan lifestyle.  Each piece is made with the right fabric in mind—putting ponté where there is a need for stretch and lace where there is a need for elegance.  Many patterns are given a feminine name, i.e., Leeloo, Xtra Bella, and Mama Mia.  Susanna aspires to keep growing and hopes to bring seasonal lines to life in the near future.

The story:
Like her creations, Susanna’s personal story is a very unique one.  Susanna grew up off the grid in rural Montana.  Susanna is the youngest in her family with two older sisters and an older brother.  Growing up, Susanna had a strong influence of healthy and independent women, especially her grandmother who handmade almost all of her clothing.  Being the youngest, Susanna inherited the hand-me-downs, but her grandmother’s work held and the clothes were still in good quality by the time they reached her.  As Susanna got older, she started creating her own style from items bought from thrift stores.  She laughs as she remembers buying men’s polyester suits to cut and refashion into funky items of her own.  This practice transformed throughout her life and has helped begin Mountain Mama Originals and Wild Women Fabrics.  The operation started in Susanna’s kitchen, then basement, to renting a small loft space, to now leasing property with two beautiful buildings—one, the Wild Women Fabrics workshop and the other, the Mountain Mama Originals store.  Today, Susanna is a mother of three, the wife of a high school educator, and an inclusive and caring business owner.

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