Our Style SHOPPING RAD HATTERS BEAUTY BATH BOMBS & LIP BALMS ARTS + CULTURE TO BE BOLD SEPTEMBER 2022
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@BILLINGSCITYLIFESTYLEPUBLISHER PUBLISHER Richard Boggs | Richard.Boggs@CityLifestyle.com EDITOR Chelsea Lyn Agro | Chelsea.Agro@CityLifestyle.com ACCOUNT MANAGER Amanda Tucker | Amanda.Tucker@CityLifestyle.com STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Chelsea Culp | ChelseaCulpPhotography@Gmail.com AD DESIGNER Rachel Collins LAYOUT DESIGNER Kelsey Ragain CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Nick Mack, Sarie Mackay September 2022 Scan QR code to visit our Instagram LIFESTYLE LETTER Corporate Team CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Steven Schowengerdt CHIEF SALES OFFICER Matthew Perry CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER DeLand Shore CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Randy Radosevich DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA Mindy Hargesheimer ART DIRECTOR Sara Minor OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Janeane Thompson AD MANAGER Chad Jensen WEB APPLICATIONS Michael O’Connell LIFESTYLE LETTER Proverbs 3:5-6 Learn how to start your own publication at: citylifestyle.com/franchise CITYLIFESTYLE.COM/BILLINGS | Billings City Lifestyle™ is published monthly by Lifestyle Publications LLC. It is distributed via the US Postal Service to some of the Billings area’s most affluent neighborhoods. Articles and advertisements do not necessarily reflect Lifestyle Publications’ opinions. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written consent. Lifestyle Publications does not assume responsibility for statements made by advertisers or editorial contributors. Information in Billings City Lifestyle™ is gathered from sources considered to be reliable, but the accuracy of all information cannot be guaranteed.4
Fabric community.of
Welcome to the September "style" issue of Billings City Lifestyle. I racked my brain for the last month, trying to figure out how in the world I was going to write a letter to all of you on the theme of style. My personal fash ion choices are typically met with more cringe than congratulations. I wear brown shoes with a black belt and gray suit. It's not good. But as I get older, I've begun to realize that maybe "style" isn't just about what people can see with their naked eye. Maybe it's something deeper. The word "style" is defined as not only a certain appearance but a certain way of doing things. As a community, we certainly do things with style. This summer has been filled with great events but the upcoming fall season is absolutely brimming with fun and interesting events. Whether you swing through a Thursday afternoon farmers market in South Park or get dressed to the nines for dinner and a show on Montana Avenue, there is always something to grab your attention. As we close out the summer and approach the fleeting moments of fall, I challenge each of you to look into our community and get a feeling for its style. The stunning views as you drive across the Rims, the smooth and casual flow of the train cars streaming past the Depot, the hints of sophis tication and history that is all around us. Each and every day, we add our own personal touches to Billings. Some are funky, some are classy. You'll undoubtedly find brown shoes matched with black socks. But all of us are important to the fabric of our city. RICHARD BOGGS,
Go to MandMTuck.PicFair.com A Single Moment taken of the Beauty of the Montana Outdoors A Single Moment In Time
inside the issue The Style Issue SEPTEMBER 2022 ON THE COVER DEPARTMENTS 4 Lifestyle Letter 8 City Scene 10 Business Monthly 12 Skin Care BEAUTY 18 Get Active ARTS + CULTURE 26 Fashion Forward SHOPPING 32 Trend Setter LIFE + CULTURE 18 26 12 FEATURED 12 Bath Bombs & Lip Balms Mariah by Design gives back through fragrant creations. 18 To Be Bold Sweet Sage Woman Clothing & Accessories is a timeline of life experience. 26 Rad Hatters An interview with Brad Tilden, owner of Rand's Custom Hats. Photography: Chelsea Culp Yolanda GoodVoice is the owner of Sweet Sage Woman Clothing & Accessories. Her company features Native American designs that reflect Yolanda’s Apsaalooke (Crow Tribe) culture. Each clothing line reflects a different chapter or theme from her life. Read about her incredible story on page 18. 6
A Single Moment In Time, are large canvas photos of local landscapes, and views from the summits of Mountains in Montana and surrounding states through the eyes of Michael Tucker. These photos have been taken with an inspirational view in time, looking down from the summits, or taken at just a moment in time that will never be duplicated.
www.asinglemomentintime.net
Michael Tucker
Find these beautiful large canvas photos that will add inspiration to any wall in your home or office. Go to www.asinglemomentintime.net
1-14: The Beartooth Rally was particularly special as hundreds of bikers brought much needed business to Top of the World and Cooke City, both having suffered tremendously from the flooding earlier this year. 1 3 67542 city scene SEPTEMBER 2022 CITY SCENE Where neighbors can see and be seen. 8
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Fly Fishing Heirlooms
On Saturday, September 3 at 10 a.m., feast your eyes on a stunning collection of classic cars and trucks on display at the MetraPark Fairgrounds. For just $3 (or $2 and a Pepsi can), you can take your time and look over each vehicle, admiring every detail. Food and beverages will be available. Quality of life, Equality of Opportunity
Burn the Point Car Show
Join the celebration of 50 years of Montana's Constitution! The Billings Public Library Foundation, Montana State University Billings, and Yellowstone Public Radio come together to commemorate 50 years of the Montana State Constitution with the 2022 Royal Johnson Forum. This event takes place on Wednesday, September 14 at 7 p.m. This rare opportunity will include a panel con versation moderated by Darrell Ehrlick, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Montanan.
Whether that special someone has a birthday this fall or you're just getting ahead on your holiday shopping, consider a custom piece of functional artwork for the fly fisherman or fisherwoman in your life. Stonefly Studio offers handcrafted hardwood fly boxes among other customizable treasures that hold sentimental and practical value. This small Montana business started out as just a hobby. When a father and son joined the Magic City Fly Fishers, they soon realized the meaning of supply and demand for simple conveniences.
business monthly
A round-up of exciting news from local businesses. Want to be featured? Get in touch by heading over to our landing page to connect: CityLifestyle.com/Billings
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BUSINESS MONTHLY SEPTEMBER 2022
DO REALLYYOUHAVETOCHOOSE? Franchising with us means making money and time for your life. START YOUR OWN CITYLIFESTYLE.COM/FRANCHISEPUBLICATIONBEYOUROWNBOSSSETYOURSCHEDULELOWFRANCHISEFEEWORK-LIFEBALANCE 11| CITYLIFESTYLE.COM/BILLINGSSEPTEMBER 2022
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“There are a lot of great people who love supporting local creators,” Mariah says. “I love Billings for that. And I love supporting local, too. If I can make a spa box and incorporate someone else’s small business into my box, I’ll do that. That’s part of what my business is about: being able to give back.”
PHOTOGRAPHY
Inspired by her background as an educator, Mariah hopes to give back beyond the small business sphere in the future. “I have such a soft spot in my heart for kids,” she says. “But a lot of people focus on the littles, and they forget the middle schoolers and high schoolers. There’s a program at Senior High where they have a closet with extra clothes and school supplies. Within the next couple years, I want to be consistently helping with something like that. The more I grow in my suc cess, the more I can do that.” Mariah’s generosity with her time and talent is evident in her work, and she states her guiding philosophy plainly as she adds, “You can’t always just keep.”
From sugar scrubs and shower steamers to bath bombs and body butters, Mariah by Design products set themselves apart with one main ingredient: care. “Everything is handmade,” Mariah says. “I take so much pride in the ingredients I use. I wouldn’t put anything in them that I wouldn’t let my own children use, which is so important to me.” Mariah’s passion for high-quality, customizable products has quickly made her a local favorite creator. As many customers have discovered, special requests are her bread and (body) butter. “I love taking special orders, especially for bridal showers,” she says. “People come to me with ideas, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I can do that. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I can do it.’”
Mariah Eggart loves her work. Her company, Mariah by Design, exploded into the bath-and-body scene a few years ago. Today, as business booms and her workload increases, she hasn’t lost any creative spark or enthusiasm. Of course, when your job involves crafting custom bath bombs, how could each day be anything but a blast?
Consistency is key—not only to a good lip balm, but also to Mariah’s vision for her company’s future. “I do see some new products down the road,” she says, “but I want to keep all the fan-favorites around, too.” A few of these favorites include shampoo and conditioner bars that last the lifetime of two to three traditional bottles with none of the plastic waste, as well as a new line of CBD body butter available at iDeal Naturals. Some of Mariah’s other products can be found at Ace Hardware, and customers can browse her full catalog online at MariahByDesign.com
ARTICLE BY NICK MACK BY CHELSEA CULP
“I’m always trying to create new products,” she says. “You don’t want to offer too many, because then it’s not as specialized, but I’m such a creative person that I’m always asking, ‘What else can I do?’”
Some of these creative pursuits take longer than oth ers. “It took me four years to perfect my lip balm recipe,” Mariah says. “It wasn’t the consistency I wanted it to be; it has to glide on and set in, and you don’t want your lips to feel dry afterward. I was tweaking it one day, and I wondered what would happen if I added an extra little bit of cocoa butter. That did the trick. My oldest son was visiting at the time, and his friends were over for dinner. I told them, ‘Guess what, everybody. You all need to try this.’ So all these dudes love my lip balm now.”
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MARIAH BY DESIGN
This can-do attitude led to a best-selling product when Mariah’s friend sent her a photo of an essential oil called “Immunity Booster” and asked her to replicate the scent in a shower steamer. But friends and custom ers aren’t the only ones who push Mariah to innovate.
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“There are a lot of great people who love supporting local creators, I love Billings for that. And I love supporting local, too. If I can make a spa box and incorporate someone else’s small business into my box, I’ll do that. That’s part of what my business is about: being able to give back.”
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-Mariah Eggart
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To Be Bold ARTICLE BY ERIKA FREDRICKSON | PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHELSEA CULP Sweet Sage Woman Clothing & Accessories is a timeline of life experience GET ACTIVE | ARTS + CULTURE18
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Yolanda is the owner of Sweet Sage Woman Clothing and Accessories, a company that features Native American designs that reflect Yolanda’s unique Apsaalooke (Crow Tribe) culture. How she got to where she is now—well—a lot of that has to do with that boldness she learned from those lessons her Dad taught her. Sweet Sage Woman was featured in a runway show in Missoula last September 2021 at the Zootown Arts Community Center as part of a two-day Indigenous fashion and art event. On the stage, models wore her designs—leggings, dresses, and accessories with the colors and geometric shapes of Crow culture. The stunning designs look nothing like anything you see in stores or on mainstream clothing sites. Dynamic and vivid, they evoked Crow culture in a contem porary way. But they also have an origin story that begins in darkness.
And she made a bold move: she started Sweet Sage Woman. She had long been intrigued by the contem porary versions of indigenous bolo ties and ribbon skirts she’d see at Native conferences and gather ings, and that lit a fire in her. Starting the business was about combining her artistic and business skills, but she also realized she had a message to share. She
When she was a young girl, Yolanda GoodVoice’s father told her to jump on a horse and ride into town from their house outside of Pryor, Montana. There was a parade happening there, and the horse’s trainer would be waiting to receive the Appaloosa. Little Yolanda jumped on the horse and rode there, and when she met the trainer on the street, he looked at her, amused. “He was like, ‘You rode him over here?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’” She didn’t realize that it was a wild and strange thing to do, and that her father had her do it to teach her to be bold. “I didn’t know,” she says, laughing. “It was like an ignorant fearlessness. “Oh man. My dad. He’d do stuff to me like that all the time.”
“I didn't realize how sad and depressed I was,” she recalls. “I had this beautiful, beautiful little boy, you know, and he was such a treasure. And he needed me, you know? And I just didn't want to be around. I was alone. It was just me for the most part that had to care for my Yolandachildren.”hada counselor and had started attend ing beading and quilting circles at the All Nations Health Center where she connected with a com munity of sisters. That support moved her forward with a realization: “I realized that I was the only one that was going to be able to pull myself out of my depression. I was responsible for how I survived, how I thrived, and how I grew.”
Yolanda has told this story many times now, but it’s not easy. She was working for her tribe remotely, helping entrepreneurs, and she had just received her master’s degree at the University of Montana in busi ness administration. She had a passion for entrepre neurship, but also for art. She had dreams of starting her own business that combined the two. But when the tribe changed leadership, she lost that job. She was two months pregnant with three other children to take care of. When her son was born, she suffered from postpartum depression.
A Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women design came next—an acknowledgement of the national crisis of many young Native women dis appearing and being sex trafficked or killed, with little investigation. Yolanda didn’t want to put her designs in the forefront.
“They want us to enjoy our lives.”
called her first clothing line, “I Am Fearless.” Though now it refers to a different fearlessness than the one she had as a young girl jumping on that horse.
“It’s important to see where you are and what’s good,” she says. “The process of creating these designs is a lot of contemplating, a lot of thinking, a lot of asking The Creator, ‘what do I need to focus on? What do I need to share?’ And gratitude has gotten me through some pretty low spots in my life. It’s really important to count what your blessings are.”
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The pandemic was hard. Yolanda lost family and members of her tribe. Her materials for her clothing were delayed by supply chain issues. She started driving for DoorDash 70 to 80 hours a week. She almost gave up. But of course, she didn’t. Yolanda has a new line, which she launched early this year at the Double Tree Hotel for the Big Sky Indigenous Women in Fashion and Art Gala, a show case of 2022 spring lines of wearable artwork. Her new line featured a butterfly, sweet peas, and the Trollius Laxus, also known as a globe flower. She’s calling the line “Gratitude.”
“I want to leave space for the people who are really affected by it,” Yolanda says. But she made a dona tion to the MMIW campaign from her clothing sales. After MMIW she created a line called “Live,” featuring Crow-style geometric shapes. She had been thinking about her dad who taught her fearlessness but who died when she was 19. She remembered how much time he spent mourning his own dead parents, but she knew he would not want her to do the same. Our dead loved ones want us to live and be happy, she explained.
“It’s a good motto to live by sometimes,” she says laughing, “but I think it’s more important that we are courageous—even if we are afraid.” Her next line of clothing was called “I Love ME,” a reference to part of her revelation, coming out of the darkness of PPD, that self-love and self-compassion are vital—and so hard to have when self-criticism is what so many of us are taught. For that design she chose flowers—rose, bitterroot, sorrel—to repre sent that idea. The next line was called Centered—a more contemporary design of turquoise and red that alludes to light and dark, with the idea of being in the present, “centered between who we were and who we are going to be.”
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ARTICLE BY NICK MACK PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHELSEA CULP
Rad Hatters
These are dangerous words for any craftsperson to speak, but Brad Tilden stands behind his guarantee. As owner of Rand’s Custom Hats, he’s faced more than his fair share of challenging requests, but the phrase “We can’t do that” doesn’t exist in a Rand’s hatmaker’s vocabulary.
“We get all kinds of requests,” Brad says. “Some customers will say, ‘Hey, I was watching this movie, and in this scene this guy was wearing this hat.’ We’ll go back through the movie, and we’ll find the scene. Then we’ll figure out the hat crease style and size, and
An interview with Brad Tilden, owner of Rand's Custom Hats “You dream it up; we can build it.”
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we’ll replicate it for the customer. At one show, a lady came up to our trailer with this other lady and said, ‘Here, I want a hat like hers.’ She’d seen her in the stands, grabbed her, and dragged her over. No matter what you want, we can figure out how to do it.”
The success of shows like Yellowstone and the increasing national fascination with Big Sky Country and cowboy culture has proven fruitful for business. Brad says, “We get the call quite fre quently: ‘I want to look like Kevin Costner or who ever.’ So the last couple years have been amazing. I think hats are coming back. Back in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, every businessman wore a hat to work. I don’t know if it’ll get to that point again, but there’s definitely more and more people buying hats and wearing them.” Brad and his wife, Leanne, bought Rand’s in 2020, leaving behind their California citrus farm to take the reins of the family-owned business.
Longtime staff members, some of whom have worked at Rand’s upwards of thirty years, made the transition as easy as possible, teaching the new owners the tricks of the trade and welcom ing them into the family. “We haven’t changed a thing, nor do we plan to,” Brad says. “We’re going to stick to the old-fashioned way of building hats from scratch and using the finest materials for fit and finish.”
The sheer scale of customization options is beautiful to behold, lining nearly every wall in the shop. Brad estimates that over 300 hat prototypes occupy the shelves, and his crew stays constantly busy creating more. “We have a silversmith who makes buckles,” Brad says. “You can do your ini tials, add your logo. Whatever you want, in any size. We offer braiding on the rim, beadwork, you name it. For ranchers, businessmen—anything you could want from a fedora to a cowboy hat, we build ‘em all.” Some shop highlights include a replica of Clint Eastwood’s hat from his 2021 film, Cry Macho and a model of the Rand’s hat Tom Selleck wore in the 1990 western, Quigley Down Under. Most
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Of course, just because you can watch the full process doesn’t mean you should—the hatmakers’ devotion to quality means each hat can take from a couple days to a couple weeks to complete, depending on supply chain issues. Still, it’s fascinating to view any stage of the journey, from the humble beaver-skin beginning to the elegant end product.
On your next downtown outing this fall, consider dropping by Rand’s Custom Hats. A tour of Brad and Leanne Tilden’s remarkable business is enough to transform even the most skeptical city-slicker into something of a cowboy convert.
For customers who aren’t lucky enough to live near Billings, Rand’s offers a convenient online shop at IWannaHat.com.
At Rand’s, buying a hat isn’t just a transaction—it’s an experience. “We’re always here in the shop,” Brad says. “When customers visit in person, they can see us building the hats. They can watch the process, from the raw body all the way to the finished product.”
Who are we kidding, though? You didn’t come to Rand’s just to tour. Your own custom hat process begins with head measurements, which a hatmaker will take using an old-school wooden device called a conformateur. Using those measurements, the hat maker will “block” your hat by steaming a beaver-skin template over a wooden dome that essentially serves as a model of your head. Brad says, “We’ll shape, crease, and hand-sand the hat to whatever finish you’ve chosen, and then we’ll add whatever trimming you like” The options are near endless. Brad’s hat, for instance, features a binding on the edge, a handbraided Vince Donley hatband, and a cattleman’s crease, with a four-inch brim.
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recently, Rand’s crafted a hat for Tim McGraw. The country singer proudly displays his purchase on last December’s People magazine cover.
The team also attends rodeos and conventions from Nashville to Vegas, rolling into town with a trailer and all their fitting materials in tow. “Still, it’s best to just come in and see our shop,” Brad says. “See the amount of prototypes on the walls. Visit with us and build a relationship so we know what you’re looking for.”
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And there’s Hazel, who is often seen in her yard in the early morn ings in her pajamas, pulling weeds or pruning the lilacs. She stops to secure a vine that has sagged away from the trellis. Is she obliv ious to the looks she gets from passers-by? Hard to say. But she is doing what’s important to her.
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And I know a Shelby, who meditates in her small corporate office and sells essential oils on the side. Her collection of block-print blouses and sandals might make the onlooker think she’s a bit of a latter-day hippie or flake, but she is the go-to person for solving tough technology questions.
There’s David, who gets up from the table at the local restaurant and circulates around the room, grabbing old friends by the shoul der and asking about their steer calves. He’s shy with the wives but always jokes with them to break the ice. By the time he returns to his own table, his French fries are cold, but that doesn’t matter.
What about Rick, the neighborhood president of the Homeowners’ Association, whose shirts are always crisply pressed. He notices perhaps a little too much about your new fence: “It’s actually six inches out of alignment with your easement,” or he may mention that your hedge is “a bit wild-looking.”
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And lastly, there is Samantha, with the Louis Vuitton bag and the fancy SUV. She’s a big contributor to her favorite social media platforms and has earned a name for herself providing worthwhile advice to young moms. If you want to know the best skin care prod ucts, she’s the one to ask. Style is often conflated with numerous other concepts: fash ion, personality, appearance, character, hipness, wealth or the appearance of it, confidence, and even the way we walk. The people who’ve stood out for me, after the trappings of popularity or afflu ence drop away, are people with character and identity. They’ve earned a sense of who they are, and because they’ve done this, we can recognize them from some distance away, or from overhearing them in a crowded room.
The most exciting thing about identity is that it is fluid. Life has a way, over time, of carving away the extraneous things that don’t mean much to us -- everything from shoes to attachments to inse curities. And more often than not, life’s difficulties are the heat that melts us and allows us to cast ourselves as something new, more defined and more true. Hazel the gardener knows she’s the neighborhood eccentric but finds happiness living in a quiet world of joy and nurturing. All the other characters mentioned are on their own journeys toward self. Aging may be a rough go in some respects, but its fruits are many. We learn to use our cognitive resources in ways that nurture and help us become who we want to be. Less time is spent on pre senting a curated image or on impressing others – behaviors that undermine our core. The passing years, with their accompanying dents, scrapes, and wrinkles, teach us what feels right. Our knowl edge grows, and blossoms into confidence that our skills can both serve and define us in ways that richly reward.
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