"NO GARMENT UNDYED"
By Ralph Bartholdt

It was an unusual offer by a man whose pants were at his ankles.
His boxers were cotton.  Arlene Falcon looked them over.
"Yeah, I can do those in tye-dye," she told him.
Since that autumn day at Spokane's Pig Out in the Park when a founder of Clotho, LTD. dropped his trousers as part of a business transaction, ms. Falcon has been custom tie-dying boxer shorts.  More than 450 at a time.
Clotho is a Coeur d'Alene clothing manufacturer that makes a line of pajamas and boxer underwear called Uglies.
Ms. Falcon owns and operates Tye Dye Everything, with stores in St. Maries and Moscow.
The man wanted Ms. Falcon to tie-dye boxers as part of a new clothing line.
Theirs was a meeting of materials.
The shorts are made from five separate cotton panels.  Each panel is dyed differently, so no pair of tie-dyed Uglies boxers are alike, and Clotho names its underwear.  The ones dyed in Ms. Falcon's shop at 1117 Main Avenue are called Freakin' Uglies according to the manufacturer's catalog.
They are offshoots of a fad thought to have reached its zenith in the 1960s when tie-dyed clothing was favored by the rock n' roll set.
As checkered flannel, however, tie-dyed prints have become a staple in the clothing industry.  They have diverse appeal.
Local sports teams use them.
That pleases Ms. Falcon who for ten years has made a business of tie dying.
"A friend said it's a fad that won't last forever," Ms. Falcon said of her beginnings.  She didn't heed the advice.  "Here it is 1999, and it's still going."
From McDonald's advertisements to Barbie Doll outfits, tie-dyed clothing is in,

which keeps business at Tye-Dye Everything flowing.
"It has just taken off," Ms. Falcon said.  "I'm getting calls from all over the place."
She has customers in Oregon, Washington, California and some interested parties in the Midwest who have contacted her via Internet.
She hasn't pursued the Midwest market, but may, soon.
"That's for future growth," she said.
When KKZX, Spokane's classic rock radio station, needed something typically post-modern to give away as part of the 60s weekend last month, promoters knew where to look.
"When they needed tie-dye, they called me," Ms. Falcon said.
Her shop in the Main avenue mall is tucked into a small corner of the boardwalk nest to the office of the Pines Motel.
Outside, a tie-dyed cloth wind-whirl spins like a stretched out Slinky in a slight breeze.  Inside are racks of clothing that fit all sizes and dispositions.
There are rainbow dresses for "little old ladies" (one of her customers, an elderly lady, calls her rainbow dress, her happy dress, Ms. Falcon confides) to rompers for toddlers.
At a WSU arts and crafts fair last year the hottest selling items weren't teenage clothing, she said, but baby clothing.
She sells sarongs to a Sandpoint dance group, and a California Christian organization has contracted her to tie-dye chef hats for an annual outing.
Tye Dye Everything's flyer includes more that 70 items from tablecloths to sports bras and baseball shirts in a variety of sizes including 6X.  Prices range from $3.50 for a dyed scrunchie, to $45 for a long dress.
With business booming, Ms. Falcon is considering her options.
"I'm contemplating expanding more in the mail order and Internet business," she said.  "I feel real lucky…doing something I really like."

FIRE TESTS TIE-DYE ARTIST AGAIN
By Cynthia Taggart

Arlene Falcon hadn't even mastered all the gadgets on her new- to-her 1987 Ford Taurus wagon when it burned two weeks ago.
Trouble sprouted under the hood five minutes out of St. Maries, where she lives. The acrid smell of burning engine stole her daughter's nose first.
Arlene pulled the car over, lifted the hood and gasped at the ghostly blend of orange flames and dirty smoke hungry to spread.
"We freaked out," she says. "We hailed the first car on the road and screamed for help."
Then, she dove into the car to save her possessions-10 boxes of wildly tie-died T-shirts, dresses, leggings, sweat shirts, and tank tops. She was on her way to an arts and crafts fair in Walla Walla.
As the flames crept over the engine and toward the dashboard, bystanders panicked. They pulled Arlene away from the danger and let police unload her car.
Police retrieved but piled them next to her burning car. Within minutes everything was in flames.
"It was so hard, so painful to have to watch those boxes burn," Arlene says in a rare moment of depression. "There was nothing I could do."
Insurance covered the car, but not the contents. Arlene figures she could have earned $10,000 from the clothes in those boxes. Still she isn't glum.
"I can't dwell on my loss," she says. "What good does it do me to be angry?"
She's obviously learned from the past. This recent disaster is Arlene's third. Fire destroyed her home in 1985 and the tie-dye room in her business in 1995.
A Coeur d'Alene retailer who sells Arlene's wares worries that the latest loss will put her favorite tie-dye artist out of business. Arlene laughs.
"The same week as the fire, I was worried that I was losing money. My wholesale was too low, " she says, "This is my lesson. I'm telling customers I had to raise prices."
The swirling reds, blues and purples that surround Arlene in rainbow brightness every day seem to work on her like good news.
"All I can think is that I'm a survivor," she says cheerfully, "There's life after tragedy."
But even the upbeat Arlene realizes she's struck out in St. Maries.

She's moving kids, home and business to Moscow next month.
The first fire hit her just nine months after she and her family had moved into the log house they built. Arlene was a child of the 1960s, a New Yorker and high school follower of the Greatful Dead.
Before she sank roots into Benewah County, she lived on a kibbutz in Israel, then traveled around the United States in school bus.
Her husband, Mark, Suggested they settle in North Idaho. Like pioneers, they homesteaded near Santa, cut logs and built.
She believes an escaped spark from the woodstove ignited the fire. No one was hurt, but the house was totalled. They were miles from any fire protection and had no insurance.
"It was pretty horrifying," she says.
The community rallied around Arlene's family. Gifts, money and shelter helped them until they could rebuild.
The second fire hit their T-shirt shop in downtown St. Maries four years ago. Arlene and Mark began tie-dying after a Greatful Dead concert in 1987. At first, they worked in their living room and sold their wares at barter fares and concerts.
"Everyone was digging our T-shirts. It was great," Arlene says.
They bought their shop in 1991 and called it Big River Designs. A woman cleaning the building discovered the fire, which was blamed on an electrical problem.
The fire toasted Arlene's tie-dye room and smoke-damaged a front office, but insurance covered the loss.
"After the house fire we got a bigger, better house," Arlene says. "After the shop fire, we got a brand new shop. There's always a silver lining."
Divorce last year prompted Arlene to open her own business. Tye-Dye Everything. She's already decided to move to Moscow, where her 19-year-old twins live, when the latest fire hit. It reinforced her decision to leave.
"This New Yorker has been in Benewah County for 16 years," she says, laughing. "Now I have to rethink the way I do business. There's no insurance money to bail me out."
She'll reopen in a purple mall behind Mikey's Gyros on Moscow's Main Street, and hope for a cooler experience than she had up north.
"I have tie-dyed St. Marie's, Idaho," Arlene says, exhibiting her work-roughened hands as proof. "It's time to move on, I can't wait."

"NOT JUST FOR WOODSTOCK ANYMORE"

Moscow business will tye-dye virtually any item of clothing a customer desires
By Erin Walter of the Tribune

Moscow - The store is called Tye Dye Everthing - and owner Arlene Falcon means everything.
Psychedelically spiraled baby bonnets, hair scrunchies and thong underwear have joined the more commonplace tie-dyed T-shirts in Falcon's new store behind Mikey's Gyros on Moscow's Main Street.
But Falcon hasn't stopped there. "I dyed a whole elk hide," she says proudly.
Falcon dyed the six-foot hide in bright primary colors for a Portland craftsman who used the pelt to make drum heads. She also helped a young Jewish boy be the hippest kid to celebrate his barmitzvah by creating his custom ordered tye-dye yarmulkes.
"I sell them to all my Jewish friends," she says, placing a colorful skullcap on her head.
Tuesday, the native New Yorker was starting some T-shirts in her 24-by-24 foot store, which opened this week.
The spidery red, orange, yellow and black print shirts are for a race car driver in Spokane.
Falcon opened her kaleidoscopic enterprise in St. Maries in 1991 after seeing how ell her tie-dyed shirts sold at a 1987 Woodstock anniversary party in Spokane.
Although she moved retail for Tye Dye Everything to Moscow's Sixth Street this fall, Falcon wanted to combine retail and production in the new Main Street store.
"When we saw the hookup for sinks, we knew it was the perfect place,"

she says about the small store. She also has added a natural gas washer and dryer and two part-time employees.
Each tie-dyed garmet takes about 10 minutes to fold and dye, using dyes chosen from dozens of colorful squirt bottles. The clothes then sit overnight and are washed the next morning to set the color.
"I sell a lot of rainbow spirals and I'm partial to purples," she said of her inventory.
But Falcon will custom-dye any color.
Although tie dye first emerged as a groovy clothing style in the 1960's, its bright colors have endured through three decades.
"It's a celebration of life and joy of color; it's not just an expression of the 1960's."
With outdoor festivals, craft fairs and farmers markets, summer is boom time for a tie-dye business, Falcon says.
On May 6, Falcon's car and about $10,000 worth of dyed duds were lost in a fire that started while she was driving to a craft fair in Walla Walla. But she's bounced back and will be at Spokane's Hoopfest this weekend.
When she's not traveling to more than 15 events annually, she sets up shop at the Moscow farmers market on Saturdays during the summer.
Summer specialties include bright halter tops, bikinis and sundresses. Baby clothes, such as one-piece rompers and socks, are popular year round. Falcon's clothes range in price from $3.50 for baby socks and scrunchies to $17 for T-shirts and $50 for rayon sundresses.
She will custom dye items brought into the store, but says 100 percent cotton produces the most vibrant hues.
Tye Dye Everything is open from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, but her clothes are also on sale at the Main Street store Northwest Showcase, which is open weekends.