The Arrival Collection. K Terry Smith plans to launch a new collection for OLLY AWAKE sometime in the next two months. Credit: Courtesy of Kyle Asperger
Fashion industry professionals and local designers joined the Columbus Fashion Council Jan. 14 for their first Virtual Fashion Industry Mixer of 2021.
Thomas McClure, founder and executive director of CFC, said the nonprofit organization, which is working to expand the fashion economy in central Ohio, has hosted 62 mixers on Instagram Live. As a way to stay connected to the Columbus fashion community during the COVID-19 pandemic, each livestream features two special guests from the industry to discuss different topics concerning fashion, design and events.
McClure said bringing on industry professionals such as Alex Vinash, David Tupaz and local designer Tracy Powell not only brings the community together, but also helps to educate viewers.
“Bringing them on helps us educate and inform the public and the fashion community about their experiences,” McClure said.
Thursday’s livestream was the first in which CFC used the event management company Events Amplified to stream their event. McClure said Events Amplified has the ability to reach a bigger audience by streaming on both CFC and Fashion Week Columbus’ Facebook and YouTube channels, and eventually on their LinkedIn accounts as well.
McClure welcomed viewers by briefly looking back at the accomplishments of CFC in 2020: bringing designers together to make over 30,000 masks during the shortage, putting on Fashion Week Columbus, awarding scholarships and creating mixers.
Before introducing the guests, McClure said they would transition from weekly livestreams to monthly in 2021, occuring on the first Thursday of each month. Additionally, he said Fashion Week Columbus will host quarterly mixers with a larger panel of four to six guest speakers.
The first guest of the night was Betsy Meacham, the director of strategic engagement and communication at the Columbus Museum of Art. Meacham said the museum partnered with Fashion Week Columbus for Wonderball 2020, an annual fundraising event.
“It was a natural fit for us,” Meacham said. “We engaged with them to help bring the fashion element into full view.”
The museum will be partnering with Fashion Week Columbus again for Wonderball 2021 coming up Jan. 30. This year’s theme is “Evolve.”
“We thought that was fitting for a few reasons,” Meacham said during the livestream. “One is we’ve totally evolved from an in-person to a virtual format, and the other is that a lot of the artists have been sharing about how their work has evolved over the past year.”
Wonderball 2021 will be streamed live and include performances from Nina West, Hakim Callwood, Keäma Official and DJ Moxy Martinez. Although admission is free, Meacham said they welcome support through sponsorships or donations.
The second guest was K. Terry Smith, the founder of OLLY AWAKE, a gender-equal design company based in Columbus. Smith spoke to the challenges their brand faced during the pandemic and how they and OLLY AWAKE designer Celeste Malvar Stewart had to pivot and focus on planning instead of production.
“We were really on track to launch our new collection last year, and our production facility got shut down and everything got thrown into confusion, so Celeste and I had to find a new way to work together,” Smith said.
With production and design on halt, Smith said they and Stewart had to step back and focus their energy on business planning, growth and staying connected with the community and fashion industry.
“This year, I watched people get closer. Geography got thrown in our faces because you could be on Zoom with someone in California, and it wasn’t weird,” Smith said.
Smith said they plan to launch a new collection for OLLY AWAKE sometime within the next two months.
“We design clothes for specific reasons and because we have something specific to say to the world,” Smith said during the livestream. “I want OLLY to be a brand that means something.”
In addition to Wonderball and a new OLLY AWAKE collection, Columbus residents can look forward to Startup Week for the fashion industry. McClure said the Columbus Fashion Council intends to launch the first event of its kind in Columbus at the end of the first quarter of 2021.
