A LIFE DESIGNED BY ANNIE

Published in the April 11, 2026 issue.

How does a rock-and-roll London costume designer for Elton John end up in lonely little Walker, among the tumbleweeds?

Well, if there’s one thing about Annie Reavey, it’s that she follows her own path. Though she’s been profiled in Vogue and enjoys a certain celebrity orbit, her work is also here, tucked into murals you’ve probably passed a hundred times.

She shared pieces of that life Monday afternoon with The Sheet, seated at her dining room table, flipping through a hefty portfolio.

When she was young, her parents called her a “wild child.” Which is saying something, considering they were both racehorse jockeys raising seven kids, so normal was already a bit skewed. 

Annie, though, found her footing early – not in the saddle, but at her grandfather’s side. He was a goldsmith and commercial artist, and by age five, she was painting with him.

“It was just too high for me up there,” she said of horses, laughing.

Freedom didn’t come quickly. She was sent to an all-girls boarding school, where she both “benefitted from the structure” and got into a fair bit of trouble. At 17, she had a daughter, whom she gave up, a chapter she describes as leaving her “stuck in the blue” without even realizing it.

Through it all, art never wavered. She continued her studies, first at Oxford, then Leicester College, eventually earning a degree in textile design, fashion and interiors. In London, she freelanced in shoe design and textiles. Then, while painting a mural at Rocket Records, she met Elton John. That’s when things took off in her career.

She designed many of his classic looks, from the jumpsuits to the sequins all the way down to the platform boots. Her portfolio reveals a sheepskin and satin ensemble with a cat-and-the-hat style headpiece on one page, and on another, a brightly colored garb that spells out the star’s full name, “Elton Hercules John” across his body and down his sides in massive lettering.

And while it all feels very Elton, when asked how much of it was him versus her, she said, simply, “it was all me.” At the time, she said, he was “more interested in the drugs” than the clothes, offering vague directions like, “I’m really into jumpsuits at the moment,” and letting her take it from there.

Decades later, her influence still surfaces. Alessandro Michele pulled from her designs for Gucci’s Spring/Summer 2018 collection, some pieces nearly identical, stitch for stitch.

It makes sense the moment you step inside her home.

There are trinket boxes and oversized jewelry in every corner. Fabric draped over doorways, most of it glitter-threaded. 

“It’s too plain without them,” she said, holding one up. 

On a shelf near the door sits two stacks of brimmed and extravagant hats, a sort of signature for the seamstress. This time of year, irises welcome you in the front garden.

People call her a hippie. She doesn’t like that. It’s got a dirty connotation, she said. She prefers the term “bohemian.”

She moved to the states in 1975, landing in Los Angeles before heading to Palm Springs, where she designed custom clothing for clients like Barbara Sinatra and Alice Faye.

She lasted one summer. Desert life wasn’t for her.

So she moved to Idyllwild, taught stage and costume design at ISOMATA, and started making her own hand-painted clothing and doing window painting.

Eventually, she found her way to the Eastern Sierra, living in Mammoth for a number of years before heading north to Walker.

In these hills, she painted pretty much anything you can think of. Ski suits, murals, theater sets, and holiday window displays. She also taught art in the Eastern Sierra Unified School District.

Many of the businesses she worked on are gone now, but a few pieces remain, brightening small corners. At Good Life Cafe, birds lift off across a painted sky beside an ornate column. Her work is scattered throughout the Mammoth Mountain Inn.

Look closely, and you might spot familiar faces, like her partner.

They met in 1980, when, as she admits, she was being a hippie. A friend of a friend tried to set them up, calling him a “German teddy bear.” 

Annie wasn’t sold.

“I’d just had a German, and it wasn’t a good experience,” she said. But he stuck around. The match, eventually, was inevitable. They didn’t always get along – something she attributes, in part, to his German heritage and her Irish one – but they built a life together.

Then came 2020. 

The wind picked up first.

Sitting in her Walker home, she watched the valley disappear into sand, gusts tearing across the basin, bending everything with them. She’d never seen wind like it. Kittens had nested under her deck. She went to check on them.

That’s when she saw the flames, and they were already close.

She pushed herself along the side of the house against the wind, making her way to her two tenants in her nearby properties. One resisted. One didn’t. There wasn’t time to argue.

Back inside, her partner refused to move. He sat down. She dragged him. Through the door. Into the wind. Away from the house.

A month earlier, she had already evacuated once. Panicked, she packed two IKEA bags with her art and photos and had left them by the door just in case.

Now, outside of a few museum pieces and magazine clippings, that’s what remains of her life’s work. Two bags.

After the fire, she spent six months living at Topaz Lodge, caring for her partner after he developed Parkinson’s disease. He died earlier this year.

Through all the adversity, her art paused. Life didn’t leave much room for it.

Now, she’s starting to paint again.

She remembers a moment from her teaching days, when students were guessing their parents’ ages. Eventually, they turned to her.

“You, Miss Reavey,” she recalled, “will never grow up.”

She smiled. That had never changed.