photo credit: Skyye Camm Photography
by Jessica Jones
Taneshia Taylor has loved fashion since she was a little girl, and she’s recently found a way to bring her love of fashion and accessories together in a unique way by starting her own stylish line of bow ties.
“I’ve been a fashonista all my life,” she said. “I’ve been designing clothes since elementary school and it wasn’t designing like I do today, it was more so cutting things up and tying things together, pinning and patching things together, because I didn’t know the sewing machine that young.”
In high school she began sewing, stitching and selling the pieces she created, and even began distressing jeans for other students.
“I thought that was so cool that I was getting paid to do something so simple and easy but it was artistic in its own right,” she said.
After high school, she decided to further her knowledge of fashion. At 21 she moved to Atlanta to study fashion designing and merchandising at American Intercontinental University where she learned the essentials of fashion such as garment construction, fashion history, creative design and analysis, pattern making, fashion sketching, as well as figure drawing, to “learn the curves and angles of a body,” she said.
She’d been in Atlanta for five months before getting her first job at a magazine company as a fashion stylist for people who came in for interviews, moved back to Birmingham about three years ago and discovered her love for bow tie making.
“I didn’t take [bow tie making] to the level I’m on today,” she said. “I was very avant garde with it. I was big and exaggerated with it and I made them only for ladies and I got that from my mentor who is a tailor in town, he owns Bush Hill Tailors where he makes bow ties.”
Taylor has been creating bow ties for the past year and is currently working on incorporating never before seen elements into her designs. Her latest innovative creation is a two sided bow tie with different prints and colors on each side.
“I’m always on fashion sites looking for new and innovative ways to do my bow ties and I think this is my niche in fashion,” she said. “I love everything about fashion but I found over the last eight years I don’t like constructing garments because it takes so long. I’d rather design [garments instead of make them], but with the bowties being such a small garment, I can mass produce it by myself.”
Bow ties aren’t’ the only thing she produces. She also embellishes accessories for little girls, newborns to tweens including hairbands, jewelry, leggings, socks and garments such as small dresses and shoes.
Taylor’s talent has given her the opportunity to work on several music videos and television shows as a fashion assistant and makeup artist, but her focus has now shifted to creating her own brand, returning to school to complete her merchandising degree and possibly starting her own boutique.
“I would love to have a store myself, but I want to get my bow tie line up and off the ground,” Taylor said. “I’m in the process of doing an e-store, so I’ll have an online store and hopefully by this time next year I’ll have a storefront and I have an idea that’s a tad bit different from your normal boutique.”
To see more of her work visit her on Instagram at tayloredknighs_bowties.
