Love Letters For Music Lovers

Back in 2002, the same year that Houston Press selected Chloe Dao of Project Runway fame as Best Designer, Enjoymusic Enjoylife was crowned the best club wear / music clothing brand.

Best Designer - Chloé Dao

Houstonian Chloé Dao spent eight years in New York City, including a stint at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Now she’s brought her talents home. She and sister Kim opened Lot 8 in the Rice Village at 6127 Kirby Drive two years ago, specializing in off-the-rack trendy clothes and local designer one-of-a-kinds. Dao has lots of her own fashion fun on the racks and offers alterations and custom designs. Her specialty is dressing you up in wedding, prom and party frocks. While she’s more downtown, compared to Vanessa Riley’s uptown designs, expect Dao to create quite a name for herself among Houston’s fashionistas.

Best Dance and Club Wear Designer - Enjoymusic Enjoylife Music T-shirts

We’ve got a horde of fine club dancers in this town. Somebody’s gotta dress ‘em. If there were still any raves around, chances are you’d see many shirts out there created by this man. Akindele’s brand of clothing, Enjoymusic Enjoylife (EMEL), featuring that all-important musical-note insignia, has been the favorite among energetic clubgoers for quite a while now. Baseball shirts, T-shirts, baby tees — they’re all designed to keep a young whippersnapper comfortable while dancing to all things electronica. Fortunately, if you head out to spots like Hyperia, you can still see clothing bearing the EMEL moniker, and a bunch of kids proud to be sweating their asses off in it.

Best Guitar Teacher - Dave Payne

Dave Payne can do just about anything when it comes to the guitar. Besides his own beautiful playing and singing, which runs the gamut from classical to funk, he’s got enough patience and good grace to teach anybody else how to follow his lead. Everybody from middle-aged engineers looking to perfect all those blues licks they’ve been working on for decades to adolescent punk rockers (that include groups such as the Collapsing Horse and Chowderheads) to teenage girls interested in pick-styled classical guitar has benefited from Payne’s good-humored teaching style and gentle manner, which make the hard work of learning how to play a whole lot of fun.