What Happens When Cheese Meets Fashion?

Kerrygold and Native Denims Collaboration

The words “cheese” and “fashion” are not typically found together, but brands and people are starting to bring those disparate ideas together. For instance, in early 2025, Kerrygold, the Irish dairy cooperative, collaborated with Irish jean brand Native Denims to create “The Cheese Pocket Jeans.” The cheese pocket is that tiny pocket on our jeans that we never quite know what to do with it. The jeans also include a “a Kerrygold branded leather back patch, a green "Kerrygold" back pocket tab, gold stitching, and a beautifully designed, embroidered cheese pocket featuring the Irish buttercups present in Kerrygold's logo,” according to a 2025 press release.

Another fashion brand, The Fashion Brand Company by Penelope Gazin, created both a linen dress and a jacket made to look like Swiss cheese, holes and all.

That’s just two designers who are bringing the world of cheese and fashion together. Across the United States, fashion designers and cheesemongers are showing their love of cheese through their clothing and accessories. For some, it’s about spreading happiness; other folks see it as a widening acceptance in the cheese industry; and for some, it’s a great conversation starter.

We talked to several artisanal creators and cheesemongers to better understand their cheese fashion.

Fromaginator Cheese Fascinators

Christine Moore, the featured milliner of the Kentucky Derby, coined this portmanteau to describe the fascinators she created with Wisconsin Cheese, the official organization representing Wisconsin cheesemakers. Fromaginators are a combination of fascinators, the little hats popular at horse-racing and tea parties, and iconic Wisconsin cheeses.

Suzanne Fanning, chief marketing officer at Wisconsin Cheese, explains that they are always looking to find iconic moments that they can “drop in and spread a little bit of happiness.” It was a “perfect collaboration for us to come together and bring the best of both. [It was a chance to] do something magical for people who happen to be at [the Kentucky Derby].” After all, cheese and bourbon go together well, Fanning adds.

Fanning notes that Wisconsin takes its cheese pretty seriously: “we strongly feel that we make the best cheese in all of the world. So if we were going to put cheese on a hat, we needed to make sure that it was going to be the finest hat in all the land.” That led to Christine Moore, “the most celebrated milliner in the history of racing.”

Working with Wisconsin Cheese was a no brainer for Moore. “Everything about Derby is over the top,” Moore says, “A lot of Wisconsin cheese is the same way. They’re both in the Midwest.” On top of that, she found that Wisconsin cheese has an elegance to it. What’s more refined than sitting down and having a cocktail or wine with a plate of cheese?

One of the biggest challenges was figuring out which six cheeses would be represented in the hats out of 600 Wisconsin cheeses. They ended up choosing six cheeses that were distinctive, not generic. For instance, one fromaginator is based on Roelli Cheese’s Red Rock, a bloomy rind cheddar cheese with a blue vein. Fanning pointed out that there was no mistaking what it is. The other cheeses represented included Hoard Dairyman Farm Creamery’s St. Saviour, a Camembert-style cheese; Landmark Creamery’s Herbes de Provence Fontina, an Alpine style cheese; Roth Cheese’s Canela, a washed rind cheese; Sartori’s Merlot BellaVitano, a hard cheese flavored with Merlot wine; and Marieke Penterman’s Foenegreek Gouda.

Moore made the cheeses using natural fibers, which she frequently uses in her signature Derby hats, and chose silk that could be painted. But she knew she had a special responsibility since she was representing another artist: the cheesemaker. After a few attempts Moore decided she wanted to add the little nuances of the cheeses. “I wanted to fool people that this was really cheese on their head,” Moore explains, “My staff at a distance couldn’t tell the difference” between the silk cheese and the real stuff. Ultimately, she wanted people to respect and learn more about Wisconsin cheeses.

The hats were a hit even before the Derby. Fanning notes that “people were blown away.” Some people even asked if the hats should have been stored in a refrigerator, since they looked so realistic. At the events at the Derby, people could sample Wisconsin cheese. At the Barnstable Brown Gala, the Kentucky Derby gala, they auctioned off one of the hats where 100% of the proceeds would go to the University of Kentucky Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center.

Fanning concludes about the fromaginators: “It's just about finding joy in the unexpected. It's about sparking conversations and turning heads and finding magic in unique places. When you really love cheese, we wanted to find another unique way for people to literally wear their love of cheese.”

Cheese Brooches and Handbags

Chevre brooch by Danielle Gori-Montanelli Photo by Elisa Shoenberger

For Danielle Gori-Montanelli, felt jewelry-maker, joy is also key in her work. She makes food-themed jewelry, starting with candy and apples. She’d find inspiration in the food she’d be eating. She says, “it’s a fun challenge to think how I can transform sheets of felt into something that really reads as whatever that I'm trying to create.” Cheese in particular is a source of constant joy for Gori-Montanelli.

With cheese, she had a lot of fun making everything from the grain of the wood cutting board to the various types of cheeses, including fresh mozzarella, swiss cheese, gouda, and even blue cheese. When people visited her booth at art and design shows, like the One of a Kind show, Gori-Montanelli notes that when people see the jewelry, they just start laughing at the pieces. “It makes me so happy that people respond and resonate. It kind of tickles them. I feel like I can’t change the world but if I can do a little small good, that makes me happy.”

When asked about the customers who gravitate towards her work, Gori-Montanelli says that they tend to have a sense of humor. They’re not the typical diamonds and gold kind of people. I get a lot of the ladies with big glasses.”

For Gori-Montanelli, the cheese brooches are “happiness that you take with you and spread.”

Maximalist Tapas handbag by Joanna Miller photo courtesy of Joanna Miller

Joanna Miller, Director of Student Life at Cheese State University, takes a different approach with her cheese-themed handbags. It originally started as a creative outlet during the Pandemic when Miller began making cheese plates with polymer clay and vintage plates as art pieces. So when the 2023 Wisconsin Cheese’s annual Cheese Ball, she decided to take her skills to make something wearable.

But she did not want to make something from scratch. She thrifted the bags, then made cheese and accompaniments from polymer clay, and attached them to the bags with epoxy rosin. She made two bags and a bolo tie: Mortadella + Caprese pink circle bag; Maximalist tapas clutch; and a Nacho bolo.

Nacho Bolo photo courtesy of Joanna Miller

Her choice of cheeses were largely based on the outfits she and others planned to wear to the ball. She had been watching a lot of White Lotus Season Two, which takes place in Italy, and decided to make something Italian that would be bright in color to pair with her black outfit.

The Maximalist tapas clutch includes several slices of cheese and was made to accompany a tapas-themed shirt worn by Miller’s friend, Molly Brown, Dean of Mongers at Cheese State University. Miller made the nacho bolo for her husband, Nathan, who is from Texas and loves Western wear. She has no plans to sell these pieces but has continued to mix and match the pieces with outfits in other places.

When asked why people are getting into cheese fashion, Miller believes, “People who work in cheese are very passionate about it. Overall, there’s a post-pandemic fashion trend of whimsy and fun. People are having a lot of fun with it. That’s translated to the cheese world for sure.”

Collecting Cheesewear and Defining a Style

Not only does cheese fashion reflect the more whimsical fashion world, it is emblematic of a changing cheese industry. Carrie S, cheesemonger and freelancer, explains that the cheese fashion showed that the industry was changing. More cheesemongers are wearing embroidered hats, funky shirts or jewelry shaped like cheese graters, because “it makes us all feel a little bit more into our element. You’re more yourself when you dress yourself.”

They continue, “It used to be a thing in the industry where you have to wear professional chef coats or you have to wear a uniform at work. [The industry] is starting to be a little bit more unique and individual. Fashion is starting to come out a little bit more.

Carrie S. notes that they look for things that are cow print, cheese, and/or milk themes. For instance, they are looking to get some goat clogs, which look like little goat hooves with a split in the middle. Carrie describes them as “kinda like Birkenstocks but just turned into goat hooves.” They also like finding older jewelry or pieces that they can make into something cheesy. For instance, Carrie took a broken bolo tie and combined it with a cow magnet. “I’m really loving my niche obsession with cheese and turning it into a fashion obsession,” they say.

Not only is fashion a way to express oneself, but it's a way to signal to others about a shared love of cheese. For instance, Carrie has a shirt from a North Carolina cheese shop that says “Cheese Person” on it. Everyone from security guards, bouncers, and even people on the street tell them that it’s their kind of shirt. “I don’t know these people. They just know they like cheese. That’s really fun to have that interaction too,” says Carrie.

T-shirts are often people’s gateway into fashion, Carrie notes. You can get them at cheese shops like NYC’s Murray’s Cheese. First, it’s one, then you find yourself buying 70,000 things after that. “It just kind of snowballs into an obsession,” Carrie explains.

With industry events, such as cheese conferences, Carrie explains that it's almost turning into a fashion show. People are putting on their best and coolest outfits for conferences where they are learning about cheese. They see that the trend likely comes from queer and communities of color, which are often leaders in fashion.

They note, “Our industry of cheese is changing and becoming younger and more open to diversity. It’s being more accepting of people of color and more accepting of queer communities and queer spaces. That change is slow, but it's definitely sometimes visible.”

Adam Moskowitz and Sarah Simiele by Carrie S

For instance, Sarah Simiele, co-owner of the Curd Nerd in Syracuse, NY, wore a full brown and white cow print jumpsuit at a cheesemonger competition several years ago. “She stole the show with that and she won,” Carrie recalls. While host and MC Adam Moskowitz dons a cow costume, for Simiele is wearing an outfit, not a costume. Other cheesemongers have worn the Fashion Brand Cheese suit, cheese earrings, and a grilled cheese purse.

Courtney Khoshafian, co-owner of the Miami Cheese Shop, brings her background in fashion to her love of cheese wear. She explains that she started an apparel company when in school doing mostly monograms, which was very popular. She later ended up going back to business school and began working in advisory/investing services where she began working with local dairy farmers in California. That’s when she fell in love with cheese. Since then, she’s opened a cheese shop in Los Angeles before moving to Florida and opening the Miami Cheese Shop there.

“I brought a lot of my custom clothing experience to the cheese world. Every time I go to any cheese event, I'm always in a custom cheese dress, or cow print pants or something like that,” Khoshafian says. It’s a great conversation for people, even if it is not a cheese event. She has seen a variety of cheese apparel from cheese sweatshirts, cheese patches, and more, thanks in part to swag that cheesemakers bring to cheese conferences.

Since she started working in cheese and going to cheesemonger invitationals, she began collecting all cheese related pins, patches, and stickers. Originally Khoshafian put them all on an apron, but it became too heavy so the collection was moved to a jean jacket. She estimates that she has about 100 total pins. Her favorite pins are the ones that showcase the cheese itself. For instance, Forever Cheese had a pin that depicted its famous Drunken Goat Pin.

Khoshafian thinks that the appeal of the pins is multifaceted. You can wear several at the same time, but only one cheese themed t-shirt at a time. (Khoshafian believes she has 75+ branded cheese shirts). Plus, pins are small enough to pack, which is perfect swag for cheese conferences.

While she used to print and embroider her own clothing, she nowadays finds vendors on Etsy and RedBubble who make cheese print dresses. Khoshafian even bought a blank dress and screen printed on it herself.

Khoshafian loves seeing the creativity of other people in the cheese world: “I really like the customized thing. So if someone else made a jacket with their pins, it would look completely different from the one I had, because you can do whatever you want with it. There’s not one size that fits all, like not every person loves the same cheese or every single person loves one style.”

It’s a great way for cheesemakers to get their brand out there and for cheesemongers to share their stories. Khoshafian points out that cheesemongers are in the business of storytelling: “ I want people to learn about the cheese makers and their families, because they're really great at what they're doing in terms of making cheese. But they don't get to tell their story. So that's why the shops and the cheesemongers are so important because that's our job. That's what we're good at.” Each button, t-shirt, patch, sticker helps bring the story of cheese into the world.