At your typical fashion show, stone-faced models walk the runway before expressionless designers, buyers, and editors. The night before Halloween, at the SoHo studio of New York designer Stella Ishii, it was a very different scene indeed. As models of varying ages walked a narrow path between rows of seats packed with admirers, there was applause the entire time, and plentiful hooting and hollering.
This fashion show was different in another way, too: the hip clothing—$50,000 worth of donated designs by Ishii—was decorated by artists from Oakland, California’s venerable Creative Growth Art Center, which has supported artists with disabilities since 1974. (There are now many such studios nationwide, but Creative Growth was the first.) Stylish, one-of-a-kind looks by studio artists such as Casey Byrnes, Maureen Clay, Zina Hall, Dan Miller, Lynn Pisco, Nicole Storm, and many others included paintings of smiling faces and landscapes as well as abstract decorations and patterning, which the models exhibited on the catwalk. Some went with the typical pouty look, but many grinned from ear to ear.
Matilda wears a cardigan by Emma Holbrook and jumpsuit by Brian Nakahara.
Japan-born Ishii heads up fashion agency the News, at whose 3,000-square-foot studio the event took place, and founded the label 6397 (the alphanumeric rendering of the word “news”) after working for Comme des Garçons and introducing brands like Martin Margiela and Vivienne Westwood to U.S. audiences. “The work that comes out of the Creative Growth studio gives me so much joy,” said Ishii in press materials.
“I loved it so much,” said New York designer Colleen Allen, who’s been profiled by W Magazine and Vogue and is a 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 for art and style, after the runway show. She was positioned, naturally, in the front row. “There was so much energy, and the concept is amazing. I was very impressed.”
When I told her this was the first runway show I’ve attended, she issued a warning: “This is a high bar.”
A rack of Stella Ishii designs modified by Creative Growth Art Center artists, on view at a fashion show. Photo: Otto Harris.
The crowd also included outsider art devotees like Matthew Higgs, director of New York’s White Columns; Elizabeth Denny, ex-New York dealer and incoming director of the Outsider Art Fair; New York dealer David Fierman, co-founder of the Open Invitational fair, which represents disability studios exclusively, and of the similarly focused gallery Open Studio; and artist and MacArthur “genius” Josiah McElheny. The host committee included Paper magazine co-founder Kim Hastreiter and editors from Purple, Vogue, T: the New York Times Style Magazine, and New York Magazine’s The Cut, all in attendance.
The rousing pop-and-rock soundtrack, meanwhile, was provided by Hop Peternell of Beauty Music, a music studio practice, collaborative recording project, and record label centering the musical practices of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It’s housed at Studio Route 29 in New Jersey.
A visitor checks out the lewks by Creative Growth artists on Stella Ishii’s clothing. Photo: Otto Harris.
The fashion show began 12 years ago, as Creative Growth executive director Sunny A. Smith (tapped for the post in August) told me before things got underway. The studio’s artists were already making clothes, he said, and have great style to begin with. What started as a little runway show at the studio, with the artists modeling their own creations, has become Creative Growth’s largest fundraising event, dependably drawing 1,000 to its annual gala. Currently on view in Oakland is the show “Fashion Is the Sunshine That Spotlights Everyone.” This was the second New York edition of the event.
“When we asked the artist Emma Holbrook how she felt” in the garment she created, Smith told me, “she looked in the mirror and said, ‘I just love myself.’ That goes to the heart of what we do.” The “neuro-expansive” artists the studio supports, he said in remarks before the runway show, offer new ways of seeing and imagining the world.
Kola wears a blazer by Christine Szeto, t-shirt by Isaiah Jackson and jeans by Casey Byrnes. Photo: Otto Harris.
Browsing the racks, I was struck by many inspiring looks, including a pair of jeans decorated with Pokémon characters by Lynn Pisco ($350); a poncho painted with abstract patterns by Maureen Clay ($1,400); an earth-toned necklace by Avery Babon ($125); jeans painted with abstract designs by Barry Reagan ($350) and Stephanie Hill ($650); and an abstract painted blazer and shorts ($1,250) by Isabel Gallegos.
A visitor checks out the styles at the Creative Growth fashion show. Photo: Otto Harris.
Mickey Boardman, Paper’s editorial director and host committee member, served as auctioneer for three of the night’s outfits, all of which sold at prices under $1,000.
“Those artists are living their best life,” he said of the artists modeling their looks at the Oakland runway shows. “I cry every time.”
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
