Denise Hazlett

Denise Hazlett, like a lot of loving grandmothers, makes clothes and costumes for her grandkids from a sewing room in her house. The thing that makes Denise different from most other grandmothers is that she uses vintage materials to construct period-appropriate costumes to be worn at Renaissance Festivals. And not just for her grandkids – she’s made a thriving small business out of something that started on a lark.

Let’s start at the beginning, for those of you who are unfamiliar with a Renaissance Festival: A Ren Fest, as they’re known among the devout, is a carefully curated festival of medieval culture that does its best to transport the visitor from modern America to a time and place closely resembling Elizabethan England. The Ohio Renaissance Festival, often declared among the best in the nation and located in a stand of woods and meadows in rural southwest Ohio, stretches for nine weekends – each with its own theme – across September and October and showcases both local and national artisans, performers, musicians, and chefs.

In short: A Ren Fest is a place where you can walk through the woods browsing the leather goods and metalsmiths, sipping a cup of mead while surrounded by people dressed sort of like Shakespearian actors and then find yourself in a clearing to see a joust is about to take place. You may even happen upon the Queen and her Court, out for a stroll among her subjects.

Denise is known to those Ohio Ren Fest devout as a dependable and skilled seamstress. What started as making costumes for her grandkids and their friends has become a side hustle of sorts for her – she makes and sells her costumes to people all over the country, from two local consignment shops and her Facebook Page. She, and I’m not exaggerating, is known by The Queen, who wears a tassel Denise made, on her own bodice.

Denise first attended the Ohio Ren Fest about 15 years ago and her first costumes were for eight teenage boys who were mildly interested in Dungeons and Dragons, the role-playing game. She started small, with tunics and pants made from materials she found at secondhand stores and yard sales and things have grown from there into dresses and doublets and hats. Though she doesn’t make shoes, she often has to tell people to think of their footwear. “Any plain leather shoes will work, just don’t wear your sneakers.”

That has morphed over the years into leading groups of 50 or more people, all in full regalia (or as much regalia as they’re comfortable with) that she’s made or altered for them, or even helped them source, to the Ohio Ren Fest at least a couple of times every year. She goes so far as to work with the folks that produce the festival to get a group rate. On the morning of their adventures, everyone gathers at the Hazlett house and gets into costume and then caravans the 40-minute drive to the Festival Grounds.

Though she and her sister attend every weekend with their families, everyone in full costume based on that weekend’s theme, she’s extra proud of the groups that she leads and the community she’s built.

But it’s the costume making that’s gained her renown in the Renaissance community. This is ironic, because when Denise was in high school, sewing was her least favorite part of Home Economics class. Now, she spends up to six hours a day with her five sewing machines and heavy fabrics, creating garb out of things like old curtains, pillowcases, and tablecloths. “The fabrics call to me,” she says. “It’s something that I really enjoy doing.”

Though Denise doesn’t have a storefront at the Ohio Ren Fest – that would demand too much production for a one-woman operation – she’s very well known for her work and her pieces are in high demand. Using very colorful or boldly patterned fabrics, some lightweight linens and cottons and some very heavy brocades and wools, she makes clothes for both women and men up to size 4XL, as well as children’s clothes.

Everything she produces in her one-room shop is suited for even the most discerning and demanding of the Ren Fest’s participants, yet is also practical for 21^st century wear – she takes care to hide the pockets where a cell phone or car keys will live, she’s particular about which fabrics pair well, and she’s very keyed into a garment’s wearability and washability.

Denise doesn’t make anything for the Royal Court. Her clothes are for the common people – the peasants, the merchants, the townsfolk. And, because of the various themes that each weekend carries, she makes a good amount of apparel that would be appropriate for pirates or fairies or Vikings or gentlemen and women from the Scottish Highlands. To say it’s an eclectic mix wouldn’t be a small truth.

Over the years, the whole family has fallen in love with the Ren Fest. They travel around the state to other Renaissance Festivals and Faires, sometimes setting up shop but mostly just to have a good time living, for a few hours, in a different era. At Christmastime they visit winter-themed festivals dressed as characters from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. At last year’s Ohio Renaissance Festival, Denise surprised her husband Rick with a wedding vow renewal ceremony marking 45 years of marriage in a pavilion with their whole clan in attendance. Rick, who spent 20 years in the Air Force as a medic and has known Dan since they were elementary school classmates in Wellington, Ohio, goes by Sir Richard and throws himself into it as fully as Denise does – a Viking one weekend, a Highlander in a kilt the next.

Though some of the artisans that travel in Ren Fest circles devote their entire lives or all their spare time to their craft, Denise is more well-rounded. She’s a devoted steward of her community, in general. She’s always checking on her neighbors, taking care of them and making sure that everyone around her has what they need. “Making clothes for Ren Fest is a part-time thing,” she says. “I like that I have flexibility to have a real life, too.”

Another thing that sets the Hazletts apart from the usual Ren Fest crowd is that the medieval hasn’t crept into other parts of their lives. They live in a nondescript suburban Dayton house, there aren’t any coats of arms on the walls nor any other accoutrements from the era. You’d never know at first glance that every spare inch is stocked with sixteenth-century clothing. They like it that way; going to Renaissance Festivals is something they do for fun, not as a way of life. They love introducing new people to the experience, helping them find and fit their costumes, and sharing in the joy of it all. The only trusty steed in their lives is the old Mustang that Rick’s restoring.