With young designers and paid models, Baltimore Fashion Week flips the script

Among the 11 designers at Baltimore Fashion Week’s final runway show Friday, two may stand out for more than just the clothes.

Middle schooler Charlotte Cooper and high schooler Olivia Wicks, students from Sewfabulous Sewing!, will join nine adults in showcasing their collection at Baltimore Center Stage as part of the event’s emerging-designer platform.

Baltimore Fashion Week, which held its first event in 2008, is a platform for local, national and international designers to show off their work. For founder Sharan Nixon, that also means using this special time of year to help brighten the future of young creatives in the city.

As a single mother in Baltimore who raised three sons while working three jobs, Nixon, 59, had long wanted a way to elevate the youth. “I’ve watched them [my sons] grow up and seeing the situations that some of their friends had touched me,” she said. “I’m not saying we had a lot of money, but we weren’t in the same category because they [their friends] may have grandma raising them or big brother raising them.”

So Nixon created the emerging-designer platform to incorporate young people into Fashion Week events. This year, though, she ran into a wall. “Keep in mind that I reached out to about 12 different entities, schools, organizations, and no one responded,” said Nixon. She then contacted Margaret Garland, the founder of Sewfabulous Sewing!, a school where youths can learn the ins and outs of fashion.

“I sent Margaret a text at one o’clock in the morning. I said, ‘I need you to call me because I know you got students so let’s make it happen for the emerging designer platform.’ Now here we are.”

Nixon’s investment into the youth is a major factor that Wellpoint health insurance has sponsored Baltimore Fashion Week since 2018. Lanise Thompson, Wellpoint’s community outreach manager, who has been with the company for 17 years, said working with Nixon is one of the highlights of her career. “We’re really pleased and honored to be a sponsor to help young people continue their education,” she said. “This organization empowers young people, and Wellpoint just loves to support our community leaders.”

With the help of Wellpoint, Nixon is also ensuring that all the models who walk the runway will be paid — which isn’t the norm for fashion shows. As a former model, Nixon looks to her own experiences in the industry to incorporate changes that she believes previous shows needed.

”With this new workforce development, the models no longer have to do free labor, because they shouldn’t,” she said. “The registration fee covers that stipend for the models and not only do they get paid, but each designer they walk for gets paid from that design as well.”

Nixon is a voice for youth in the community outside the fashion world as well. Under her Fashion Umbrella Foundation, she has several programs, including one called Back-to-School: Refresh that provides students with school supplies after winter break to help them finish their school year strong.

“I want these young men and women to know there’s more to life than just what you see, like being on the corner,” she said. “I don’t have all of the answers, but I know people who know people, so if I don’t know the answer, I can refer them to somebody who does and won’t just B.S. them to get them out of their face. That’s a huge part of the problem since nobody listens to the children. So I want to be a part of the solution.”