Future of Fashion 2022
The "Sarah Jane Estes Sustainable Design Competition"
5 Talented designers will compete
Yolantha Harrison-Pace-Danville, KY
Joanne Hope Skiles Couch-Nicholasville, KY
Briana Armstrong-Lexington, KY
Samantha Jean Moore-Lexington, KY
Issac Couch- Chicago, IL
About The "Sarah Jane Estes Sustainable Design Competition"
Competition Judges
Designers will be selected to create 2 looks made mainly from hemp fabric. One ready to wear and one avant-garde.
The winner of the competition will receive $1000, a feature in Sophisticated Living Magazine and an award designed and made by artist Kiptoo Tarus. . This competition's main goal is support and inspired designers to design with a more environmental and socially conscious approach. Fashion is fun and exciting, but also is one of the top polluters of our environment
This competition was created in honor of Kentucky native designer, Sarah Jane Estes. Her commitment to sustainable methods of creating beautiful clothing is an example to us all. The Future of Fashion is focused on sustainability!
Recent Forbes Magazine Article
Sarah Jane Estes
Sarah Jane Estes is the founder and creative director of Storyteller. The brand blends her background in apparel design and production with her family legacy of textile art. She is originally from Danville, Kentucky and is a wife, and mother of two with a passion for sustainable design.
She studied design and art at the University of Kentucky which led her to meeting the founder of the Lexington Fashion Collaborative, Soreyda Benedit Begley. Sarah Jane showed her first collection of women's fashion at the first ever Future of Fashion show in 2009. She went on to become a co-chairman of the board of directors and with her team of collaborators began organizing events for the LFC. Planning for the Future of Fashion as well as the Neighborhood Series gave her the biggest boost in the industry imaginable and prepared her with the skills to move forward in her career in fashion. After relocating to Los Angeles she became part of the design team for The Elder Statesman, a luxury lifestyle brand based in California. With her newest endeavor, Storyteller, she wishes to continue to build on these experiences and design a brand that answers the call to reforming the fashion and textile industry.
Bridget Williams
Bridget Williams is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Sophisticated Living, a luxury lifestyle magazine with editions in nine cities across the United States. Prior to her work with the magazine, she was a development director and grant writer in the non-profit sector. Today, her charitable interests are focused as an Ambassador for the American Lung Association, where she gets to combine her passion for fitness and philanthropy by promoting the organization’s annual Fight for Air Climb and Breath of Fresh Air Gala. Bridget enjoys traveling, particularly to France, where her daughter, a past young designer in three Future of Fashion events, attends the Burgundy School of Business in Dijon.
ww.slmag.com -Lexington
Kiptoo Tarus
Kiptoo was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1984. He obtained a B.A at The University of Nairobi for Design, majoring in Illustration in 2008. He worked for a Bank in Nairobi until 2011, I then established a Graphic Design Company, King Concepts. He went on to study Sculpture at The University of Kentucky. His works have been featured at a number of galleries including Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, The Lyric Theater and Cultural Arts Center, The Headley Whitney Museum, Arts Place, The Lexington Art League and many more.
“I see liminality as a phase in social life in which this confrontation between ‘activity which has no structure’ and its ‘structured results’ produces in men their highest pitch of self-consciousness” Victor Turner 1974 Neither African American nor American African, I straddle the uncomfortable tensions that exist “betwixt and between” white supremacist America and tribal Africa.
Bella Begley
Bella is a senior in High School. She has plans to study art history and art restoration. She is the founder of the Ingenia Club. An art and creativity club for youth. Some of her artistic interest includes writing, painting, set design and baking.
Bella has been involved in the Lexington's local art and fashion scene her whole life. She has participate in a number of gallery exhibits, runway shows and photoshoots. She is the model featured in the FOF2020 poster.
Ingenia C
Laura Sioux Kirkpatrick
Laura Sioux Kirkpatrick is a model, fashion designer and photographer from Kentucky, best known as the runner-up of cycle 13 of America's Next Top Model. She was voted fan favorite in a poll the show held after the conclusion of the series, which won her a six-month, rent-free apartment in New York City. She is the co-owner of Kentucky Darling Meats, founder of the Beautiful Minds Dyslexia Foundation.
Kentucky Darling Meats