Sea Island Life Magazine Spring/Summer 2014 | Page 62

Southern Exposure
The South’s new generation of design stars are heating up the fashion world.
BY DEBRA BOKUR
PETER STANGLMAYR

T

op cities like Paris, Milan and New York immediately bring to mind fashion runways and haute couture. Traditionally, the Southern states have not conjured similar images, but, in recent years, designers from below the Mason-Dixon Line have
hurtled onto the big stage with creations that have forced the fashion world to pay
attention to the warm, Spanish moss-draped beauty of the American South.
Amy Smilovic, founder and creative director of celebrated clothing line Tibi, is among a
handful of successful designers with Southern roots. Smilovic credits much of the growing
awareness of designers with strong Southern connections to Savannah College of Art and
Design (SCAD).
“I think that SCAD has played a tremendous part,” she says. “The school is recognized as
one of the best, and I think that’s cast a halo effect over the region.”
Up-and-coming designer Afriyie Poku of Atlanta, recognized last year at Baker Motor Co.
Charleston Fashion Week for his Oberima Afriyie menswear line, agrees that traditional

system for emerging designers that is developing in the South,” Poku says.
Here, four of the South’s design darlings share their views on the region’s rising role in

NATALIE CHANIN

presents stories of those who stitch and others
whose lives have been affected by this art.

hometown’s former title of T-shirt capital of
the world,” Chanin says. “Many of the women
interviewed for ‘Stitch’ were once seamstresses
or textile workers, left [