Stevie Edwards, manner designer with regional roots, dies at 58 | Night Digest
Manner designer Stevie Edwards, regarded for his avant-garde womenswear and do the job styling celebs like Diana Ross and Jody Watley, died before this 7 days following a battle with lung cancer. He was 58.
A longtime Hyde Parker, Edwards was born in 1965 and grew up on the South Aspect. He attended Dunbar Vocational Large Faculty in Bronzeville, where he uncovered to tailor. This led him to pursue style style at the Ray-Vogue College or university of Structure, now the Illinois Institute of Art.
It was in school where by Edwards caught the eye of Eunice Johnson, an executive and the matriarch of Johnson Publishing Business, which developed Ebony and Jet Publications, and the founder of the Ebony Fashion Good present. In 1986, when Edwards was only 21 a long time aged, Johnson obtained a number of of his leather-based evening robes for her throughout the world style tour. His profession before long took off.
That winter season, 1 of Edwards’ dress styles was featured in the February issue of Ebony Journal as aspect of a team of up-and-coming Black designers “making trend historical past.” He made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey exhibit in its inaugural year that year.
Just after the present, Edwards began operating as an assistant to notable Chicago designers these kinds of as Barbara Bates, who created numerous pieces for Michael Jordan, and Reginald Thomas.
The designer Edwards admired most was Chicago designer Keith Kendall, in accordance to a 1999 Herald write-up, who mentored him. In the post, Edwards explained himself as a “true designer,” expressing, “I sketch the styles, reduce the patterns and sew them jointly, as opposed to hiring another person else to do the precise perform.”
In 1996, Edwards opened Collections, a boutique clothes and shoe keep in Hyde Park. Situated at 1360 E. 53rd Avenue, the store carried his patterns and the work of designers these kinds of as Kenneth Cole and By means of Spiga.
“I wished people not to have to go downtown,” he stated of opening the Hyde Park retail store. “They can come into the neighborhood and really feel an Oak Avenue vibe and get their Italian shoes below.”
In excess of the upcoming handful of decades, he opened two Italian boutiques in Gold Coast and the West Loop.
After 9 several years in the community, Collections shut in 2005 next the building’s buy by MAC Qualities.
In 2008, he released his upscale women’s brand name and South Loop keep “I Luv Stevie.” Dionne Williams, creator and founder of the “Emerge! Vogue Show” at New York Manner Week, told WBBM Information Radio that Edwards had a gift for creating models that spoke to ladies. “You can be self-assured in whichever design that you like. You can be daring. You can be gentle. I consider his styles seriously kind of showcased that,” she explained.
Other movie star dressings included Tiffany Hadish and Terisa Griffin.
Edwards declared on social media in early July that he would be having a crack from style to focus on his struggle with Stage 3 lung most cancers. He acquired an outpouring of support — an online crowdfunding campaign set up to aid cover clinical expenses introduced in far more than $7,000 in donations.
Whilst going through cure, Edwards died in Chicago on Sunday, August 13.
His family members has requested for donations to be created in his honor to Northwestern University’s Robert H. Lurie Extensive Most cancers Middle.
