By Ameera Steward
For The Birmingham Times
One of Birmingham’s largest fashion events, Magic City Fashion Week (MCFW) kicked off on Friday October 29, looking to rebrand, reflect and represent.
Daniel Grier, founder of a successful clothing brand Splashed by DKG and MCFW, announced what to expect for his fourth season which will be held March 31, 2022 through April 3, 2022.
Making the announcement at Asthetik Bham in downtown Birmingham one day before the Magic City Classic football game between rivals Alabama A&M and Alabama State, Grier also celebrated the eighth-year anniversary of Splashed by DKG and presented his newest line Reflections.
“This fourth season is going to be rebranding basically to make sure [the show] looks like what the city looks like,” said Grier. “And that’s not just Black and White, that’s making sure we have…everybody…represented here.”
It was clear that MCFW has a goal of collaborating with as many people as possible and making the shows diverse as well. Last week’s show drew community leaders, business owners and others that included Birmingham City Councilor Darrell O’Quinn; Lacey Woodroof, founder of basic, a sustainable clothing brand located in Birmingham; and Bib & Tucker Sew-Op program manager Viola Ratcliffe
“We’re really fortunate to have compiled a team of about 12 different people, and that’s growing…,” said Woodroof. “But a really great team of people that represent a lot of different businesses in the community, a lot of different parts of our community which is really incredible and we’re really excited to take the conversation about…fashion and art…in Birmingham, farther than…it’s been taken before.”
The event Friday was an anniversary event for Splashed by DKG and they announced what’s to come for the fourth season of MCFW.
The MCFW team has partnered with The Birmingham Museum of Art to host the four-day event and with basic to provide an immersive fashion art experience where they will gauge interest in the community with designers, retailers, brands, theater students – “anybody that’s interested in creating a fashionable look based on a piece of art,” explained Woodroof.
“We’re going to identify certain permanent collections in the museum, have each of these people that’s interested in creating looks based on art create a look based on that piece of art and then there will be a living model wearing whatever it is that they made in front of that piece in the museum,” Woodroof said.
They hope it’s an experience that “will be a really cool opening to show the intersectionality of fashion and art first, but also the intersectionality of the creative community in Birmingham,” she continued.
Grier added that basic will also provide a space for newer brands and creatives to promote and sell their work.
MCFW has also partnered with Bib & Tucker, a sewing based nonprofit, “to start young designers much earlier because that’s all apart of us building a huge ecosystem for fashion and creatives here in this city,” Grier said.
Bib & Tucker will be presenting their Recycled Runway fashion show – a youth upcycling fashion competition on Friday April 1.
“It’s going to be a night of fashion, a night of community, a night of celebrating the youth of Birmingham, the creative energy of this city, the elders in Birmingham…who passed the knowledge on to us,” said Ratcliffe. “It’s going to be for high school students; we are going to start working with organizations and accepting applications from students that want to participate…but for us it’s just so important to give students an outlet who have an interest in this.”
There aren’t too many places where events like MCFW are able to happen, Grier said, and although people have a lot of negative things to say about Birmingham, he believes things are changing.
“There are a lot of conversations across the country about what people think Birmingham is and that’s great…but we know what Birmingham is,” Woodroof added. “And we really want to show not just Birmingham, not just the state of Alabama, not just the Southeast but really and truly the country and the world that we are so much more vibrant than anyone gives us credit for, and we’ve got so much talent here and we’ve got a really…cool, art forward culture that’s super talented and very accomplished.”
For more information on Magic City Fashion Week visit https://magiccityfashionweek.org/ or follow on Instagram @magiccityfashionweek
