DC: Walk me through your creative process when designing a new Borris Powell line.
BP: I am so nontraditional. Just a few days ago I came up with my spring/summer 2016 collection and we are a year out from the wearable season. I already have the inspiration, the title of the show, and the colors of the collection. The collection came to me in my dreams, as have a lot of my ideas. I’m not that typical designer that will sit down and sketch out a collection. I’ve never done that. I’ll sketch out a few pieces and then from those pieces things will come to me. I make it up as I go from there. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, because I feel the pressure. But all of my friends that help me know that I live in that pressure zone. I started my last collection seven weeks before our last show and we created thirty layered looks. Things just come to me and I can’t rush creativity.
DC: What’s been your most successful collection thus far?
BP: The last collection that I just showed is the most successful and very personal to me, because I did it in seven weeks. I did the collection based off my life the past two years. I lost myself listening to so called friends telling me that I can’t do this or do that. I wasn’t creative for a very long time and I definitely wasn’t myself. I wasn’t happy either. In the process of losing myself I needed to find myself, so I created a collection called “Ride Alone”. It says to be comfortable being you. Be comfortable making your own decisions. That collection has been so true to me and it has become everyone’s favorite collection and mine as well.
DC: You became nationally known through the Oscars. Can you describe how that happened?
BP: The Oscar Designer Challenge in 2011 was a crazy moment, because it came a few years after I learned how to sew. A year and a half prior I was invited to show in London’s fashion show and then did two shows in New York as well. I received a call from the Academy asking me to participate in this competition. Initially I wasn’t interested, because I thought it was reality TV and I didn’t want to go that direction. The Academy’s PR representative basically told me that I was going to do the competition and that it would change my life. I declined the invitation three times, because I didn’t think that I was ready for that type of competition. I submitted sketches, but really didn’t think that I would get past the first round. After I found out that my sketch made it to the top ten and I had two weeks to finish my dress. The dress was previewed by all of the major networks and I was interviewed about my design. After I made it to the top three, the voting process moved online. I received a call two weeks prior to my show in Chicago and was told that I had won the competition. I had no idea that it was even possible for me.
DC: How did it change your life?
BP: My life changed instantly, because I had every stylist from L.A. calling me about that dress. Costume designers from TV shows pulled my dress for their talent.