How Fashion and Design Form the Way We Feel with Co-Founder of Apocalypse, Madison Moorhead McCabe
Written By Alexandre Pinto
We believe that our homes should provide us with comfort, health, elegance—and a daily dose of inspiration.
Recently, we invited Madison Moorhead McCabe, co-founder of the vintage and secondhand store Apocalypse, into the modern sanctuary of Bluff House. The whole home remodel was transformed from a craftsman-style home built in 1946 into a bright, transitional residence that honored the original home’s character. Furnished and decorated by the local staging company, Ivy Lane and the Tectonic Design team, the home is set with every contemporary essential, but with enough space for a little magic to be made.
Having Madison in the space for a collaborative photoshoot revealed how architecture and interior design can influence one’s mood and inspire artistic expression.
Personal Style
Apocalypse is a buy-sell-trade store filled with secondhand clothing, shoes, and accessories from across the ages. It is also a direct reflection of Madison’s personal purpose in life: protect planet earth and connect with the community through clothing.
“It’s been so fulfilling to work alongside the brilliant team we’ve curated to share the second hand movement with our community,” says Madison. “You know you’ve landed your dream job when it doesn’t feel like work. It’s just a lifestyle.”
Creating imagery has always been at the core of her expression, both as the subject and the stylist. At Apocalypse, her selection of garments allows her to visually channel different aspects of who she is, a creator who believes in speaking from the soul rather than following fleeting trends.
“Clothing is just another reflection of our ability to fluidly recreate ourselves and connect with who we are in the present moment.”
Celebrating gender non-conforming folks who have brought a sense of freedom to the fashion world, Madison rejects a binary worldview and embraces every day as an opportunity to dress on a spectrum. “I can style myself as masculine or as feminine as I feel day to day,” she says.
A Fashion Statement
The truth about the fashion industry is that nearly all clothing and distribution comes at an environmental cost, not dissimilar to home builds and construction. At Apocalypse, ethical consumption is Madison’s priority. Shopping and selling secondhand clothing helps mitigate many of the harmful practices used in the industry and encourages buyers to shop more unique, curated, and oftentimes higher-end items. Embracing this alternative approach to buying new is a fantastic way to stay sustainably fashionable.
A Collaborative Partnership to Strengthen Our Vision for Sustainable Design
The Wardrobe Within
When it comes to working with clients outside of Apocalypse to help them transform their personal style, Madison always starts in the wardrobe. With the goal to design a closet that feels fantastic to be in, she begins with a deep clean followed by organizing, laundering, deciding what needs to be altered or mended, as well as identifying clients’ most loved clothing and the items ready to be donated or consigned. Her favorite places to go for this next phase? Apocalypse, of course, and Common Threads in Boulder, or online retailers like Depop and the Real Real, who sell secondhand items, especially high-end designers and vintage.
Living Spaces
For our Bluff House remodel, the interior design team at Tectonic led by Kate King, selected a color palette of creamy whites, rich velvety greens, warm beige, pops of light blue in the kids’ rooms, and accents of warm oak and black finishes. With superior quality at the forefront, we integrated custom oak millwork, granite stone in Black Pearl in a Leathered finish for the kitchen and the fireplace, and all-new cabinetry, hardware, and lighting to create a pristine space that speaks to timeless design and enduring craftsmanship. Madison channeled her own muse within the home’s space—a modern woman who knows what she stands for and speaks through style.
Madison’s exquisite interpretation of the architecture and design of the home revealed how an intentionally-designed space can inspire a mood and a moment. Luckily we were there to capture her many moods! Channeling the ultra-modern living area of the home punctuated with mixed metals and pops of color, Madison’s fashion became a mirror to her surroundings. Within the brightly-lit and sultry ambiance of the bedroom, she fastened her whimsical and ethereal threads inspired by a space that is nothing short of a dreamscape.
“Capturing gorgeous photos in this expertly-designed home was an easy and fun collaboration. I had rarely done a shoot like this before and now I am inspired to document photos like this in my own home. “It’s also important for me to collaborate with organizations that put sustainability and local action at the forefront of their work, and Tectonic clearly values both,” says Madison.
Weaving in the Community
“Connecting with the community is at the core of my personal purpose as well as our mission at Apocalypse,” says Madison. Through conscious fashion, she is making the Boulder community even more inclusive and creative. Our alignment with Madison’s values is unmatched. At Tectonic, we prioritize connecting with our talented and inspiring community right here in our backyard—because together we are better. Through collaborative art, design, and fashion, we are building strong bonds with small businesses to create meaningful impact, both economically and communally.
You can find Madison Moorhead McCabe @disco.madison on Instagram and Apocalypse @disco.apocalypse
