Claiming national fame

Recently shoppers at Publix have heard Bradford Billingsley’s voice on their aisle and recognized it. Others at a gas station have pointed at him, and a young girl at Panera wanted to take a picture with him.

The Pizitz Middle School eighth grader took home first place on the premier episode of teen and tween fashion competition show Project Runway: Threads on Lifetime this fall, and Vestavia has taken note.

“People younger than me at school have come up and told me they watched the show,” Bradford said. “Everyone is so supportive,”

Bradford’s prize package, worth more than $25,000, includes a scholarship to summer camp at FIDM, his “look” being in Seventeen Magazine, and a sewing and embroidery studio.

The news had been a total surprise for Bradford. He said the judges were poker faced during filming.

One hint came from actress and model Jamie King, though, when she said she would wear both outfits in footage that didn’t air.

After seeing a posting about the show on Facebook, Bradford interviewed to be a contestant during a snowstorm in February. When he got the news that by May he would plane to Los Angeles to film at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, he started preparations. 

“I started barking orders at mom to get her to learn how to sew,” Bradford said.

His mom, Dana, came along as his assistant; each contestant had to bring a member of their immediate family who was 21 or older. She and Bradford created a brutally honest working dynamic that is obvious on the show.

“It’s how we bond with each other,” Bradford said. “We are never nice.”

Dana had worked at Parisian and embellished dance costumes for her daughter, but sewing was new territory. Bradford started sewing a year ago when he made a dress for Miss Alabama Teen USA Sarah-Baskin Champion, who graduated from VHHS with Bradford’s older sister, Abbey.

One of the highlights of the filming for Bradford were the three hugs he received from Kelly Osbourn, the judge he knew best from watching Fashion Police.

Bradford said the show accurately captured the mood of the competition.

“It was that stressful,” Bradford said. “We had almost nothing done on the dress when the second challenge came, we had just pinned the fabric.”

 “That’s why I said, ‘Just shoot me,’” Dana said.

Bradford had faced time constraints during the Rising Design Star competition during Birmingham Fashion Week, but they were not as short as these. 

 “I liked what I did a lot, but I should have done better on time,” he said. 

Some Bradford’s teachers from preschool through eighth grade along with members of his growing fan club filled Blackwell’s Pub in Cahaba Heights for a viewing party when the episode aired. Dana set up red carpet with backdrop for photos, and around 100 people attended. 

When Bradford was announced the winner, “everyone went wild,” he said. 

As party favors, Dana had T-shirts printed with the lip design from his casual design for the show. After seeing posts on Instagram, classmates and others have requested to buy them, and they have now have printed around 400 total.

“Bradford is making some money off of it, but he has to buy for a child off the Angel Tree,” Dana said.

Bradford’s design interests extend beyond the realm of fashion as well. Former Pizitz Principal David Miles asked him to design a flag for him before he retired last year, and Bradford liked getting out of class to paint the set for the school’s Alice in Wonderland production. This year he designed the school’s choir T-shirt and made a banner for a living history event on Veterans Day. In art class, he especially enjoys drawing and pottery.

Bradford said he doesn’t know what is next for his fashion career. He made another dress for Sarah-Baskin Champion in November, and his drawings continue to flood his house and paint stains mark his kitchen table. 

Photographers have offered to shoot his designs, and he knows a hair stylist and makeup artist from Birmingham Fashion Week that he might work with in the future.

“I think a lot of people are intimidated, we just have to go with it and be ourselves,” Dana said.