Retro Rebel
Trina Fey Brings Creativity to Every Stage…
Trina Fey (pronounced Fee) is not your typical Cottonwood cowgirl. Though she went to West Valley High School and still lives in the North State, she is probably more well known in Los Angeles, New York City or London than she is locally. She’s a pinup girl (in the Betty Grable style), a barrel racer, motocross rider, professional photographer, model, magazine cover girl, costume designer and hair stylist. She also owns and operates the All Pinned Up hair salon in Redding. Professionally, she goes by the name of Miss Jenna Purrs.
Trina’s family moved to Cottonwood from Sacramento when she was in fifth grade. In Cottonwood, her neighbors were horse people and she spent every spare moment at their arena with the horses. In eighth grade, Trina was scouted by Genevieve and Cecil Rouse and she began showing their quarter pony. By high school, she was being paid to compete in District 1. Luck smiled on Trina during high school when West Valley High School teacher Tom Vasquez mentored her in business and taught her to move through the world with confidence—skills that still serve her well.
Meeting Trina, you get the sense that she’s doing 10 different things at the same time. With her hair pulled back and glasses resting like a tiara on top of her head, she never stops moving. She uses words the way a masseuse uses their hands, guiding the conversation along, adding a healthy dose of laughter along the way.
Trina began competing in motocross before they separated the categories between men and women. Motocross involves not only racing against other motorcyclists, but riding off-road at high speeds down gravel and mud trails. “It was very exciting, but when I won, the men/boys did not think that was cool,” she says. When the American Motorcyclist Association created a women’s league, she was on the first team.
Trina began modeling for S.F. Magazine in 2011, and she then became the first spokesmodel for Retro Lovely Pinup Magazine. Retro was formerly a print magazine and is now the largest online pinup magazine in the world, boasting 2.1 million followers. She has a spokesperson in the United Kingdom and says the British love American pinup girls. Trina is very proud of the fact that when she first appeared on the printed cover of Retro Lovely, that issue sold 10,000 copies. When she began modeling, local photographer T.A. Schmidt did her photo shoots. After he retired, she picked up the camera. She creates her photo backdrops, makes her costumes and does her own setup and shots.
When setting up a photo shoot, there’s a lot to consider. Trina is 5-foot-3, which is not very tall for a model, so she designs her outfits and sets up the photo shoot to make her look taller. It’s a fine line between a natural or artistic look and cheesy, or worse. It’s all very theatrical. Like being in a play, Trina goes into character. Whether it’s 1940s retro, a cowgirl draped over a hot rod, or painting her entire body green for Halloween, she is in that moment and at the same time managing every aspect of the set design, costumes and photography. This is where being able to do 10 things at a time pays off.
She doesn’t believe she’ll ever be done learning or growing, but rather she’s continually evolving, adding, “Don’t be easy to define. Let them wonder about you.”
Dressing up for Halloween is a no-brainer for Trina. It’s her favorite time of the year. She dresses in a different costume each day of the week of Halloween. Her hair salon customers love coming by just to see what she’s wearing. She did one Halloween photo shoot at an old cemetery in Chico and another in an antique shop in Redding. Her photo shoots range from Mad Max themes to working with pets; she even had a live boa constrictor wrapped around her neck and shoulders for one photo shoot. But her favorite is going back to her roots and photographing herself as a cowgirl. She’s most comfortable wearing a cowboy hat.
Part of the creative process is to always be on the lookout for items that will work in a photo shoot. Shopping for things that are visually striking, or retro, or just speak to her is all part of the adventure.
“As a profession, it’s a lot of work,” she says. “You can’t just take a photo. There’s a lot of marketing involved. It involves travel as a volunteer at events like car shows, doing poster signings, staffing a booth selling sunglasses, parasols, things for the ladies, all being dressed as a pinup girl.” She says her biggest fans are other women, and she believes in women who support other women. “Building each other up is the way it should be,” she says.
At her hair salon, she says every client is different and every two to three hours she gets to make someone look beautiful. “As an artist, it’s instant gratification,” she says. •
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Writers use words to open doors to a bigger world, and Bruce Greenberg is honored by the trust people place in him to share their stories. Through his writing, he invites readers to explore the layers of diversity and experience that make our community unique.
