By Kelsey Knott • Photos By Matt Johnson • Models: Triniti Paige Russell | Emmitt Lavaughn Green | L’Cris Amaru Rēal Weathers | Claire Cantacuzéne Smith
A young Louisvillian on a sustainable fashion mission, Frances Brunner is here to open the conversation about the future of fashion and how it can contribute to personal growth. She received the Rising Star sponsorship for Vancouver Fashion Week and shares stories of self-transformation along her journey.
KK: Tell me about your start. What first got you interested in fashion design?
FB: In my junior year of high school, I explored and expressed my style more. I dealt with the loss of a best friend and coped with that grief through embroidery. Right before she passed away from suicide, we had an entrepreneurial dream to create this fashion brand, Frank & Glenn, so I used that to raise awareness and donate to mental health causes. It feels like a legacy piece, a gift she gave me before she left. I went to fashion school at Kent State and took an unplanned gap year in Hawaii, where I felt inspired by community-centric living and being in touch with the land. After that, I took an internship in New York–the polar opposite. Hawaii is internal, about the body, self, and inner core, while New York is external, expressive, and goes fast. I returned to University in hopes of creating something that embodies both, internal and external expression.
KK: What influences/inspires your art?
FB: A lot of my work is based on personal transformation, like limiting beliefs and mindsets or how we critique ourselves. How can we use clothing as a language to transform these narratives and expand into a kind of limitlessness?
KK: How do the materials you use limit or add to your process?
FB: I’m a sustainable designer, so you have to problem-solve the materials and systems beyond the designs themselves. I go for dead stock or secondhand garments, even curtains or tablecloths. I’ve also self-developed a textile, showcased at the Hong Kong Redress Design Awards, called “deniim,” which is reprocessed denim fiber needle-felted together. I’m bringing that back in my Vancouver collection!
KK: What is the most important aspect of the design process?
FB: Sustainability, but also the individual. Instead of exploring deep emotion or personal experience, I ask, ‘What do we need? Who could we become without our limiting beliefs?’ We can change mindsets by opening this conversation and rewriting our critical ego carrying negative experiences and stories we tell ourselves.
KK: What does it mean to you to receive Vancouver Fashion Week’s Rising Star sponsorship?
FB: It’s insane! They found me through Redress Design Awards, an international competition. Being recognized and welcomed was huge, and going through and hearing that my past two collections were readable was nice because you’re trying to translate these ideas through a simple garment. Aesthetics and art are subjective, but I hope to use the language of fashion to create this universal conversation. Notable are times I’ve tried to step away, but opportunities and big dreams always pull me back, and the support I have and the mindset I take to handle the stress, diversity, and pivoting makes me think I am in the right spot.
KK: What do you wish more people knew about clothing design?
FB: Not many people can answer where garments go after you throw them away. Producing overseas could mean unethical treatment and long hours for workers, and even in good factories, it’s hard work. I’m always interested in shifting the consumer mindset around materials, production, and cost. You’re quick to grab a shirt because it’s only five dollars. It’s an unpopular opinion, but we should raise the value to level with the amount of work and labor–less clothes and more value to less! Minimalism is part of my journey, but it’s possible to see fashion as a uniform and reinvent community around fashion.
KK: What do you hope people gain from seeing and wearing your designs?
FB: Being present, and presently changing the future. It’s about self-transformation, our conceived potential, breaking down limitations, and rewriting those stories and narratives. Changing perspectives helps you show up differently. Clothing is so close to the body that some say it’s your second skin, but you embody the clothing, and fashion has the power to change and transform the wearer.
Check out Brunner’s portfolio site at francesbrunner.com or through her Instagram @franbrunner3. You can also support her journey and fund her next Vancouver collection through GoFundMe!
