Young artists named finalists in fashion competition

Bradford Billingsley started sketching Egyptian designs at age 4. At 9, he met Taylor Swift and gave her a booklet of 67 fashions he had designed specifically for her.

These days, Bradford said he designs or is reading fashion magazines 24/7 and dreams of going to design school in London and starting his own line. He said he can point out a designer like Valentino’s garment from across a store. 

The Pizitz Middle School seventh-grader said his experience in Birmingham Fashion Week’s Rising Design Star competition last year felt like cloud nine. The competition charges high school and middle school students with designing and creating garments out of unconventional materials.

His hand-painted hummingbird design on a dress made of roof tarping and sheet rock tape won third place. 

“This year I wanted to do outdo myself from last year,” he said. “I wanted to make a couture-looking dress out of something unconventional.”

     To do so, he crafted a gown out of porch screen and glued paper, hand-cut into floral shapes, on top to look like lace. Some pieces are embellished with rice to look like beading. The top of the one-shouldered dress is lined with ruffles made from the screen, and everything is spray-painted red, a color he calls powerful and edgy.

During the month it took Bradford to create his design, several of his classmates were creating their own. Six others were among 40 finalists for the competition who displayed their anything-but-cloth garments at the Birmingham Museum of Art in April. Thirty semifinalists’ designs were modeled on the runway during Birmingham Fashion Week at the end of the month.

Vestavia Hills High School ninth-grader Brooke Lindsey drew her inspiration from a 1950s drive-in movie theater and listening to her grandfather sing Elvis songs.

“It’s like a flashback,” she said.

The skirt is made of bottle caps, while the bodice is a papier-mâché base lined with assorted bottle caps. Ruffles at the top and waist were made of colored duct tape, and a bow made of tickets accents the top of the single strap. 

“My friends said it’s the perfect picture of my fun personality,” she said.

If Brooke’s design moves onto the runway, she plans to model it herself, complete with a pair of blue suede shoes.

For more information on Birmingham Fashion Week, visit bhamfashionweek.com.