By Lisa Lopez Snyder
Contributing Writer

It was a cold, windy day this January when Elizabeth Allen’s sister, Katherine Cross, came to her with an idea. Cross had been downtown in Greenville earlier in the day and ducked into an artist’s studio to seek shelter from the rain. There, Cross met Al Keiser, an accomplished photographer whose digital prints on satin and other fabrics caught her eye. Cross immediately thought of her sister, a chemist and aficionado of textiles and fashion.

“Katherine came home and told me about Al’s studio and how he prints his work on satin. She said the colors were amazing,” Allen said. “She knew I’d be interested in seeing his work.”

“When I saw his work, I thought, ‘I would wear something like this,’” Allen said. “I hadn’t seen anything like this and I knew it would bring something really new to fashion apparel. I told Al I would love to do scarves with this.”

It turned out, she said, he had been considering some kind of apparel with his designs, too.

Within just two months, Allen was collaborating with Keiser and launched La Tante E, a company that features scarves with exclusive digital print designs by Keiser of AKDesign in Greenville. She came up with the company name after helping her 3-year-old nephew learn French, which she spoke while studying abroad in France.

“We were reading the children’s book ‘Madeline,’ pointing to the pictures,” Allen said, “and he was asking, ‘What is the word for Eiffel Tower? What is the word for school?’ Then he turned to me and asked, ‘What is the word for aunt?’ The word is ‘la tante.’ I’m La Tante Elizabeth.

“Later, when I was thinking of business names, I knew I wanted something personal and something French. But I didn’t want anything pretentious. Then I thought, ah, La Tante E.”

The designs are individually signed by Keiser and, using his digital images and other designs, showcase the natural and historic landmarks and the popular flora of South Carolina. One design depicts a sunset panoramic image of Charleston from the harbor. The view includes a stretch of houses that border the edge of the peninsula.

Other designs include black-and-white images of the old Liberty Life Insurance Co. building in downtown Greenville, and others portray close-up views of blossoms from flowers and flowering trees in a Georgia O’Keefe style, said Allen, such as lilies, magnolias and dogwoods.

“I was thrilled to see South Carolina images that weren’t captured in typical photographs,” Allen said of Keiser’s work. “I wanted to use the scarves almost as a way to emphasize that there are so many places to visit in the state, and that South Carolina has a lot to offer.”

Allen said she’s always had an interest in design and fashion. In fact, she said, her interest in textiles and fashion was one of the reasons she chose to attend Clemson University, which had a polymer fiber and chemistry program. The program was originally the school of textile, said Allen, who took garment courses as well as the polymer courses.

A 2007 graduate of the university’s College of Engineering and Science, Allen also studied in France for a year on a study-abroad program. She took garment courses that focused on fashion houses and learned what defines a couture collection and how that represents a company.

It was that experience, along with her degree in polymer fiber and chemistry, that fueled Allen’s interest in textile and fashion and, ultimately, helped her understand what type of materials would work best for La Tante E scarves, she said. The scarves are made of different types of voile material and poly taffeta, high-quality textiles that hold their shape and wear, and present clear images of Keiser’s photographs, said Allen. The scarves, she said, “incorporate higher-technology ideas into fashion.”