The Bolo Queen

Meet the artist outfitting country music’s biggest names

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When Mackenzie Palladino started Semplice Designs on New Year’s Day of 2018, she did so at the urging of friends. Palladino had been making jewelry for many of them for years, and they convinced her it was time to make it official by opening her own business.

The business has morphed and grown, and today, Palladino outfits many of country music’s biggest names with her signature bolo ties.

“It’s so epic. I love music so much, so to see people who are musicians representing my work and loving it, is incredible,” she said.

Originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, Palladino attended East Carolina University for the first two years of college. While studying art therapy, she was able to enroll in the university’s prestigious metalsmithing program and work under Mi-Sook Hur, a renowned metalsmith and enamelist.

“The fact that I got to learn under her was such a big deal,” Palladino said. She knew that if she  was good enough in the class and earned recognition from the instructor, that would be huge.

Palladino did excel. Not only did she ace Hur’s classes, she invested in learning different techniques that would help make her work stand out.

“I always love a challenge. I quickly became a metalsmith. I was obsessed with it and I didn’t really expect that, but some things in life are very unexpected and just tend to work out.”

However, Palladino was feeling a pull. She longed for the mountains, for the outdoor adventures and community that existed in Appalachia. So after two years at ECU, Palladino transferred to Appalachian State University, nestled in the small town of Boone, North Carolina. 

“I knew that it was going to be good for me in the long run because I’d always wanted to live in Boone,” Palladino said. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a community like that. The Appalachian Mountains are such a beautiful place.”

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With her sights still on art therapy, Palladino continued to study art and psychology. She fell in love with Boone, steeped herself in the outdoors and continued to work on her craft, regularly making custom pieces for friends. After graduating she started her company.

“It started to gain traction. At first I was starting to make earrings and they were inspired by nature in the Appalachian Mountains,” she said.

Boone is where Palladino got introduced to Appalachian music with its bluegrass, folk and Americana influences. The small college town not only has a flourishing music scene, it also has a history of churning out successful performers.

“Music is a big part of everything I do, and it’s a big part of living in Boone,” Palladino said.

Bluegrass and Appalachian greats like Doc Watson set the tone for Palladino and piqued her interest in creating bolo ties. The music not only inspired her craft, it directly impacted it because Palladino experiences an intense form of synesthesia, the process of hearing sounds, like a great song, and seeing shapes or designs.

Made up of a thin string of braided leather with metal tips to keep the material from fraying, the bolo tie is clasped together by a slide that has some decorative aspect. The origins of the style are generally credited to Native Americans of the southwest where Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo men would wear bandanas clasped around their necks with a shell or piece of silver.

However, the first person to patent a bolo tie design was Arizona silversmith Victor Cedarstaff, who was granted a patent in 1959.

The name bolo tie is thought to come from the word Boleadoras, a leather and stone weapon used by indigenous civilizations of the Pampas, today the grasslands of Argentina around the Río de la Plata. The weapon—consisting of two or three rawhide thongs, each tipped with leather-covered rocks or metal balls that are bound together at one end—was adopted by the gauchos for use in both hunting and warfare. Natives and gauchos alike would whirl the boleadoras around their heads and fling them at the feet of a fleeing horse or other animal, making it impossible to continue running.

As an alternative to the classic necktie, bolo ties became popular among bluegrass and country artists throughout the second half of the 20th century.

Palladino found early success in the craft community in Boone.

“I had never taken a business class; I had no idea what I was getting myself into and what I was doing. It was very much a challenge,” she said. “I had just finished school and I was trying to figure out if I wanted to fully dive into art therapy. I knew that I just wanted to keep creating art because that’s all I’ve ever done my entire life.”

Part of that success can be attributed to Palladino’s effort to stand out among the field of hand-crafted jewelers. Her unique style of bolo tie is easy to spot and attribute to the artist, which allowed for an ever-expanding web of commissions throughout the music world. On countless occasions, artists have seen others wearing a Semplice Designs piece, inquired about it, and gone on to ask Palladino to create one for them.

Making the jewelry unique is critical, she said. “How can I stand out? What can I do to make my pieces recognizable? It’s really worked out for me because a lot of the artists who wear my work, people will say they recognize it immediately.”

The first well-known musician to purchase one of Palladino’s pieces was Tyler Childers, while she was vending at Merlefest—an annual “traditional plus” music festival held in Wilkesboro, North Carolina—in 2019. He not only bought a bolo tie for himself, that he went on to wear it later that night on the big stage. He also bought a pair of earrings for his wife and fellow musician Senora May.

“That was the first time my work had been seen on stage, on the big screen. It was such a big deal … I remember it was like an adrenaline rush, and I decided I was going to try and keep chasing it.”

From there the web grew. Andy Hall, dobro player for The Infamous Stringdusters, commissioned a bolo tie after seeing Childers wearing his. Then Billy Strings reached out for a custom tie.

Other than those, the list of artists now wearing Semplice Designs work is extensive—Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Wynonna Judd, Jeff Arevalo of Goose, Sturgill Simpson, Sierra Ferrell, Caitlin Krisko, Paul Hoffman of Greensky Bluegrass, Paul McDonald, Andy Thorn, Jay Starling and Alwyn Robinson of Leftover Salmon, Colby Acuff, Drayton Farley, Marcus King, Mikaela Davis, John Lee Shannon, Mason Keck and Cris Jacobs.

Just this year Country Music Television chose Semplice Designs to customize gifts for each of the CMT performers at the awards ceremony in Austin, Texas. Palladino has also created custom pieces for album photo shoots, Grand Ole Opry debuts, red carpet and performance looks for Lainey Wilson, Carter Faith, Tyler Halverson and Peyton Porter.

While they have provided a high-profile platform for Palladino, there is still one part of her work that she values above all else—the ability to connect with people through art. As a lifelong artist who studied art therapy, she knows the power art has for healing.

“The way I make jewelry kind of helps people cope with things,” Palladino said. “It’s kind of like art therapy for me and for the buyer. It’s cool how it works out like that.”

Palladino often hears meaningful stories from buyers who have connected with a certain artist, song, or lyric that inspired one of her pieces. Sometimes, it’s the buyer themselves that feels the connection. Sometimes, the customer is reminded of a lost loved one who adored a particular song.

“It can be really deep when people come to me with stuff like that,” she said. “It’s really sweet, and it validates why I do what I do because everybody relates their music to a lot of different things, and sometimes it’s way deeper than surface level.”

These connections have propelled Palladino to create with fervor, grow her business and explore the connection between emotions, music and metal art.

“Whenever you feel deep, deep emotions about something, writing it down or creating art with it is the best form of therapy,” Palladino said. “For me, I do both but I especially love creating art from emotions, because that’s when it tends to flow the heaviest.”

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