(gentle music) (mechanism clicking) (mechanism beeping) (upbeat music) - [Jackie] Blood, sweat, tears, glitz, glamour.

All of that and more goes into making fashion.

And that's what this episode of "Monograph" is all about.

We're gonna show you designers and makers of all ages tonight.

To start, here's the founder of Magic City Fashion Week and the designer of Splashed by DKG, Daniel Grier.

(upbeat music) - I don't feel like I'm just creating fashion at all.

I'm definitely creating art and moments that will hopefully change all of our lives.

I always want to have something that makes people feel powerful.

That they feel like, "Oh, now that I have this on, I can just go and kill it, or stand on that big stage and sing."

Just want to empower them more so to be able to do that in their like, most powerful way.

And that's honestly what the clothes do for me too.

My name is Daniel Grier.

I am a fashion designer with Splashed by DKG.

Splashed by DKG started right in the same studio we in right now, almost 10 years ago.

Fashion has just always been something that I've gravitated to.

It's always been natural for me.

And what I've learned is fast fashion and things like that, we don't really hold memories attached to those clothes.

They just end up, you know, in very unwanted places.

And I've been able to focus on sustainability and adding value to things that are already there, like a lot of thrifted garments.

Where do I get my inspiration for my clothing?

Honestly, most times it's when I'm on a random day, when I'm walking through the thrift store.

It's like a therapy session, honestly.

I don't rummage the racks.

I just see whatever pops out.

And I said, "Oh."

Immediately, I just see a design.

Like, I saw this jumpsuit.

I literally thrifted this.

And I saw it, and I said, "Of course, I'm gonna wear it a couple times."

And then I'm gonna patchwork it and make it something that when people have in their closet, they're gonna like, they just love it so much, and like 10 years from now, they're like, "Oh my God, I had to find somewhere to wear this piece."

And I love that because I've obviously added value to it.

You'll remember where you went, the experiences you had while you were in this garment.

It'll be a memory for them for a lifetime.

Those are the fun parts for me.

It's the designing, the adding the value to it, saying, "Oh my God, when somebody puts this jacket on, oh, they're gonna think they're the man."

That makes me so happy.

(upbeat music) What is Magic City Fashion Week?

At the core of Magic City Fashion Week, there's this big designer competition that happens.

Why is it a competition?

Because people like to compete, and it brings more out of them.

But you have these designers who are all building a name locally here in the state of Alabama.

And they are at different stages of their career, but mostly like three years and up.

But what I want them to do is get together and showcase in their hometown what their magic is, what their product is, and just have that stage where they can just show off.

(upbeat music) So last season we did it at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

We took over the whole space.

There's a lot of emerging talent here that is ready for that moment to show off.

And they're not just designers.

There's hairstylists.

We had salons that came together.

We had a lot of retailers that had their own night.

Diana Rawlings, who was an amazing Indian saree draper, she presented a beautiful showcase.

It opened our show, really.

So that has just continued to evolve, but we did start with the designer show, and then always having shows surrounding that that have just shown off the community.

I just want to continue to make this big, beautiful, yummy bowl of like, gumbo of the South 'cause they think that we're all, we're a dirt road's child, and we're still wearing, I don't know what.

But I'm just saying, like, we're pretty fabulous here too.

So I just want to have my part in showing that.

The way it has grown and the way people look to it and the things that they say about it, the rooms that I've been in, the tables that I've been able to sit at, because of it, it still continues to blow my mind.

You know, I have some mentors, the people that have worked with Beyonce, like Ty Hunter, Raquel Smith, Mondo Guerra, who has won "All Stars Project Runway."

Those people have come and mentored designers in Magic City Fashion Week.

And we have kids going everywhere.

Now they're in New York, they're all over the place.

And the messages that they send me, like, I got one yesterday from a girl.

She's like, "I'm about to move to Cali because of you."

That means the world to me that my little self, who did not go to fashion school, none of that, just always sought to find my place in the world, are helping people to get where they need to go.

That's just crazy.

(upbeat music) - [Jackie] Now let's hear from Jasika Nicole, a working actor living in Los Angeles and a lifelong maker.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - My name is Jasika Nicole.

I live in Los Angeles.

I am an actor, but I think of myself mostly as a maker.

I have always been really creative, and I like using my hands.

And so I've been sewing my clothes, making shoes.

I make furniture, I do reupholstery, I make ceramics.

Yeah, that's kind of how I spend every other waking moment of my day.

(laughs) I kind of like to thrust myself into the middle of something and just figure it out.

I love to research a lot on how to make something happen.

I just think, well, if somebody else has done it, then I'm sure I can probably figure it out too.

That doesn't mean that I'm good at everything that I try.

But it's pretty remarkable that once you take out the element of, oh, it has to look great, it has to be monetized, I have to be able to sell this, or it has to look a certain way, once you kind of get rid of that, and you're just losing yourself in the process of doing something fun, it is probably the most fulfilling part of my life.

I don't think that my work in television and film tells you anything about me.

You know, it shows you what I look like, and it shows you how I can portray a character, and maybe you think I'm talented at that, but it doesn't give you any information about who I am as a person.

And so being able to fill the rest of my life with creating things made me feel like I was empowered again.

Ready-to-wear clothes are not often made for like, as many real bodies that exist in the world.

And so I would go in the dressing room, and I would feel like crap because, you know, what I put on didn't fit very well.

At the same time, the actual people that were creating these garments, they're not getting paid a living wage.

They're being subjected to conditions that no one should be required to work in.

Pretty much everything bad that you could think of was happening.

And these were the stores that I was shopping at.

You shop there because it's cheap.

And we think of cheap as being affordable, not costing a lot.

But we don't think about the bigger implications of what cheap means.

It means that somebody is paying for it, and we aren't.

And I wanted to figure out if there was a way for me to continue to love clothing without feeling like it was having this huge negative impact on mostly communities of color, mostly women, a lot of times children as well.

I had learned to sew years and years and years ago.

And I mostly used sewing to like, alter clothing that I'd gotten from vintage stores or shorten, you know, things, make those kinds of adjustments.

And then I was introduced to this huge online sewing community, which did not exist when I first learned how to sew.

So in the decade plus that I had been away from sewing, there was suddenly a much larger pool of patterns to choose from.

Not only that, but there was a lot more size inclusivity.

You could accommodate all the things about your body.

Then I realized my body was never the problem.

The problem was the clothing that was made available to myself and everybody else.

(upbeat music) I really appreciate Instagram because it has fostered a community.

Most people who come up to me on the street know me because of my sewing, as opposed to know me because of my work in television and film, which I am very happy about.

I love talking about the process of stuff.

I love sharing my life.

And I feel like most of the people that follow me on Instagram are other people who sew and make things.

But there are a lot of people who just feel inspired just 'cause it can be fun to watch somebody like, you know, get all into the deep details of what they're interested in.

I feel like there has been a shift in my online presence where I feel like you can learn so much about me.

Seeing me, a black, #*#*#*#*#* woman, who is living her life and feeling very proud about who she is and unapologetic about it, I think that stuff is really, really important for people to see.

Because again, I've been a part of projects where they tried to squash down parts of who I was.

And so you can't do that when I have this many followers on Instagram.

You can't squash me down.

All these people already know who I am.

(upbeat music) I have a complicated relationship with Alabama.

It's where I come from.

It's where so many people in my family comes from.

I like who I am.

I like the woman that I've grown into.

And everything that I went through has to be a part of me getting here to where I am today.

I lived in a mostly white neighborhood.

I went to a mostly white school.

I felt like everybody knew who I was because I was one of so many few kids of color and one of even fewer, you know, biracial kids.

And I think that that's one of the reasons that I latched onto theater and performance so much, is because I was finally giving people a reason to stare at me.

I was giving them a reason to look at me.

And in some aspects, I was able to hide behind whatever character or whatever role that I was playing so that it felt a little bit like armor.

It felt like a safe way.

If you're gonna stare at me, then at least do it while I am singing a killer soprano part.

When I had dreams about my career, and I always knew that I wanted to be an actor, I never connected that to being famous.

To me, being an actor just meant I get to pay all my bills doing something that I love and have fun doing.

And that was really it.

I didn't really think kind of beyond that scope.

And, you know, there's a lot of people in the world that don't really know what it is that they wanna do, so I felt really lucky to know exactly what it was that I wanted to do.

I try to ask myself periodically, "Where am I now, and is there someplace else that I wanna be?

Or, do I have like different goals or ideas for what would be exciting in the future?"

And that changes all the time.

You know, my body is getting older, my mind is getting wiser.

The things that I want are also changing with those things.

I think it's important to try and keep whatever feeds you creatively or artistically, whatever it means to you.

I think it's important to keep going towards that and to try as much as possible to make room for that in your life as an adult.

But the truth is that you do not have to be in a creative field to be an artist or to express yourself in any kind of way.

You are part of this kind of collective consciousness that is trying to make something out of nothing.

That's why I create.

I'm trying to bring something into my space that didn't exist there before.

There's a whole world of creative joy and fulfillment very literally at our fingertips.

We just have to shift our thinking a little bit in order to access it and let it really flourish.

(upbeat music) - [Jackie] Now let's come back to Birmingham to visit with the colorful and delightful designer Aaliyah Taylor.

(upbeat music) - The jewelry to me is childlike wonder.

I love being able to kind of invoke that good, core childhood memory to kind of make a person giggle.

I want them to feel like anything is possible 'cause as a child, that's the feeling we had.

Anything was possible.

(upbeat music) I am Aaliyah Taylor, creator and founder of Exalting in Beauty.

Exalting in Beauty is my business, is my brand, is my baby.

It is a business that is founded on creating works of art to enhance and exalt the beauty of everyone's creation of who they are and what they represent.

Funny enough, Exalting in Beauty started when I was actually in a broken place, where I didn't feel as beautiful, because of some life issues that were happening.

And so from that moment, I started just making jewelry out of the Perler beads that I had bought when I was in college trying to do a side hustle.

And just creating those pieces and seeing how a lot of faces would like, light up, how it brought a lot of joy.

And it was a different experience for people to see something that was once a kid's summer camp toy now become wearable jewelry.

So I started building that brand up until what I have now.

Now when I see people buy my jewelry, first and foremost, I love the expressive faces when they come see it.

Because number one, what's happening is invoking a nostalgic experience.

You're like, "Wait, are these the same beads from summer camp?"

And I'm like, "Yeah."

(laughs) And that then begins a conversation.

And then you have some who say, "Well, Aaliyah, these are kind of big," or, "I'm not sure about this color."

And it helps me kind of be the conduit to lead them to not be afraid, you know?

'Cause sometimes they say, "Well, I'm not bold enough for this."

And I'm like, "Who told you that?"

So it helps me, the earrings and the jewelry and the clothes become a vehicle for me to really empower them.

Because that's what happened for me.

I had my mom, I had women in my family, I had my village who empowered me to recognize that I am powerful.

And even my coworkers at my job, my full-time job, majority of them wear my jewelry, and they support me.

They tell me how it makes them feel when they put the jewelry on, that it truly enhances how they think of themselves.

They're able to embrace their individuality.

And they're bolder because now it's like, I got these big, old earrings on.

I can do anything.

So yeah, it feels good to really see how it affected people's personalities and even just how they think of themselves in a positive way.

(upbeat music) Oh my gosh.

So Magic City Fashion Week, I've always been the one, such a spectator, looking at it from behind the glass.

And this was the one time that when they started up season four, I was here in Birmingham.

The other seasons I was in Atlanta, or I was in school.

And this is the first time I was here.

And I had this passion for fashion.

I would make clothes for different people who knew my secret love for creating.

Not just wearing fashion, but creating fashion.

And I just felt this moment where I wanted to not just be known as the jewelry designer, the Perler bead girl, but I wanted people to see that I am multifaceted, that I do have a voice in clothing.

And I wanted to also gain confidence in my talent that I knew I have, but because of imposter syndrome and feeling inadequate, there's this part of me that was like, "Well, I'll just let everybody else do it."

So it was a leap of faith for me to really trust in myself to gain the confidence.

The goal wasn't to win, it was just to say, "Aaliyah, you did it.

So now let's move forward and keep pressing forward."

(laughs) I'm very into haute couture and avant-garde pieces.

And being a plus-size woman, I don't see that a lot on the runways.

I can even see in that moment, as the judge was going down each contestant and speaking about their work, I was in the moment just looking at my family, looking at my dad who came to support.

Just seeing everybody there and looking at how I finally did something that I've been scared to do.

And then to hear Aaliyah Taylor called as the winner, it showed me that not only did you do something that you were scared of, you were afraid of, but you also won.

Once they called my name, and I had to say a speech, and I remember that I kept saying, "I'm taking up space."

And funny with taking up space.

That used to be the things that bullies used to say to me when I was younger 'cause I was tall and big for my age.

And they would always say, "You take up so much space."

But the reality of taking that phrase and taking back the power and saying, "This is a powerful moment to take up space."

Even though I dressed to be seen with the colors, if I felt seen in that moment as a plus-size, black woman winning Magic City Fashion Week.

(laughs) Me and my mom always talk about being an artist is putting a piece of you out there.

So when people are wearing my jewelry, or if they're looking at a painting or looking at a photograph, that's a piece of me that they are looking, judging, giving comments, buying.

And so this was me being out there.

The colors didn't make sense, but in my brain, that's how I saw the face, the sculptural, you know, jacket, and how everything was put together.

It was me putting my heart and soul, and some blood 'cause of just the needle and thread.

But it was pieces of me that everyone was able to see.

So they were able to see not just the external look of Aaliyah or style of Aaliyah, but they were able to see my heart, myself, and my faith in myself and what I can do.

(gentle music) - [Jackie] It's never too early to have your wares on the runway and flex your design talents.

Let's watch how a recycled runway guides teens through the design process and gives them the stage where they can shine.

(gentle relaxing music) - Recycled Runway is a way for us to introduce young people to sewing and design.

We see TV, we see the runway, but we don't understand the work that goes into it.

So it's a way for young people to get introduced to the field without spending a whole, whole lot of money and wasting a whole lot of time.

So Bib & Tucker is a sew-op, a play on co-op.

And we are a group of people who, first and foremost, absolutely love to sew.

And we love, love, love to sew.

And when we first started Recycled Runway, it was a fundraiser for Bib & Tucker.

It was our yearly fundraiser.

For the program, the way that it is now, we focus on middle-school and high-school students.

They don't have to have any sewing experience, but they do have to have an idea, they have to have a design.

And then we take their design and help them make it manifest.

We spend eight weeks in workshops.

Once a week they'll come.

We have them meet designers who actually take their time out to work with them.

So they'll learn about how to draw a design.

They'll learn about the creative process.

We have someone that talks to them about the story that they want to tell on the runway.

And then they also have seamstresses with them at all times that we are running our workshops.

So if they need to get on the sewing machine, if they don't know how to sew, that's their opportunity to learn how to run that sewing machine.

They learn hand sewing skills.

It's a lot of different things that we teach them, but it's based on what they need and what their ideas is.

(upbeat music) - My name's Kelsey Manley, and I'm in the seventh grade.

I just really want to do it because I like to upcycle clothes and, you know, just kind of bring old clothes into like, life and just kind of revamp.

This year, I wanted to do a mix of like, Coachella, like 2017 with bling, and just, you know, kind of add a little me to it 'cause I like a lot of like, sparkly things.

So that's kind of what I did this year.

Like, with the rhinestone top and the blinged-out jean jacket.

I just, you know, Kelsey-rized it.

I didn't know how to sew when I started Recycled Runway, and now I know how to sew like, a lot more.

And now I can sew at home because they gave me a lot of tips and tricks that I can work on at home so I can get better at sewing.

Recycled Runway has helped me like, build up my confidence a lot and like, do things that are like, out of my comfort zone.

- My name is Goo Holmes, and I'm 15 years old, and I'm a local #*#*#*#*#* artist and designer.

I've been with Recycled Runway for three years as, like, as a designer.

This year, my design, so I had a old, white prom dress.

And I cut it down the middle, and I fastened it together, so on the runway I could like, pull it open for like a big reveal.

And I also used fabric from local #*#*#*#*#* artist Douglas Baulos.

But I wanted to have like, the big reveal as like a metaphor for like, the #*#*#*#*#* experience of like, coming into yourself and like, figuring out who you are, like a metamorphosis.

From my first year, I've really noticed like, more like, focusing on like, my identity and things like, issues that I'm passionate about.

In recent years, I really love like, getting to model my own look in front of people.

But also, I like being given, like giving youth a platform to like talk about what's important to them because a lot of the times, like, young voices, I feel like, are kind of overlooked.

So I feel like it's really important to give, like, to allow young people to like, speak their mind.

A big part of like, my inspiration is like, queerness and like, the #*#*#*#*#* community.

I've really wanted to like, the focus away from myself and more to like, all #*#*#*#*#* people.

(upbeat music) - So the grand finale is the actual runway, where they get out there and face all those people to show off all the hard work that they put into their design.

Thank God I don't have to like, wear the outfit and go down the runway 'cause I would probably faint.

I don't know how they...

I'm like, "Y'all got some serious courage 'cause mm-mm."

(upbeat music) - [Kelsey] It was very kind of nerve-racking.

There is a lot of people in there, and you're walking by yourself.

And, you know, like, I hope I don't trip.

That's what's going through your head, you know?

- [Goo] But that made it like, all the more empowering to like, get out there and like, be confident.

- [Kelsey] Felt really good because you could hear people like, cheering and friends and family in the audience.

It was like, really like, exciting.

(upbeat music) - [Sonya] So them being willing to stand out and say, "This is what I did.

This is who I am."

it's very encouraging.

(upbeat music) - [Goo] It feels really empowering, like, when you're there, and people are like, cheering for you.

And like, everyone's all like, super supportive, and it's wonderful.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)