Making sustainability fashionable.

2021 was the year it was time for Atlanta to launch its own Fashion Week. I partnered with a few brave entrepreneurs to bring Atlanta to the world fashion stage with a focus on sustainability. Atlanta has been called the city in the forest and the city is making big strides in correcting our infamous traffic and disconnected sprawl with the Beltline.
Our mission was to further this call by showing how disposable, fast fashion is so last millennium.

the Atlanta Sustainable Fashion Week (ATLSFW) was the brainchild of Tanjuria Willis, an Atlanta fashion entrepreneur. I joined her team to create the brand and look/feel of the event which was held at the latest in-town hot spot on Atlanta’s Westend called the Lee+White complex. The building sat next to the Atlanta Beltline and we partnered with the area’s restaurants and businesses to help cross promote and give the crowds a fully immersive experience. I conceived and orchestrated the build out of the experience in one month with an impactful entrance, several art installations, social media photo opportunities, and, of course, a runway. My goal was to cement the ethos of the runway event by weaving sustainability into every space. All material used to build the event was sustainably sourced, repurposed, and recycled after the event.

For the runway we utilized a rusted 20 foot rusted structure in the middle of the space. We covered it in donated second-hand clothing and wrapped them in cloth vines. A nod to our forest canopy and infamous kudzu. For the entrance, we used reclaimed turf from a sports field to be our VIP “green carpet”; and, used shipping crates served at our stage.

Making an [virtual] affair to remember.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, I had to quickly reformulate all previously planned brand launches and fundraisers. Ultimately, I learned that shifting from a live event to a virtual one doesn’t mean diluting your brand. Using skills I’ve crafted from launching carefully curated live events and strong digital designs, I can translate your event from physical to virtual. I design a uniform visual language and outline strong creative direction for live and prerecorded video segments.
And, when our virtual world is ready to shift back to the physical, I still got you.

The Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative’s (WEI) hosts a yearly event to announce their new cohort of entrepreneurs. The 2020 launch was also set to introduce “BLOOM”, a new curriculum for the WEI brand along with an introduction from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. BLOOM originally symbolized a flowering plant’s growth cycle and was illustrated using their brand’s ribboned logo.

However, two months before the scheduled event, the world was shaken by the novel coronavirus and quickly went into quarantine. We quickly retooled BLOOM to speak to a new reality. The idea now centered on all-for-one, helping-our-neighbor, and WWII era victory gardens. I gathered a film crew and, using CDC guideline for safety, filmed a social media challenge in separate spots on Atlanta’s Beltline. The “Ribbon Challenge” championed the idea of unity through passing a ribboned baton in a circle around the City.

As a contrast – WEI’s 2019 SOAR campaign was inspired by the soaring economy and focused on collaboration. The two events (launch and graduation) were bold with awards, pitch speeches and live introductions from Atlanta’s business leaders and the economic Delegation of the Netherlands.