Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Shereen Fischer grew up in Miami. Her father was an architect who moved to the U.S. from Egypt at age 23. Her mother was an advocate of the liberal arts. “He was Muslim, and she was Jewish,” Fischer says. “Their love overcame their differences.” After training as a ballet dancer, Fischer attended a liberal arts college in Iowa, where she met her future husband, Michael Fischer, son of the late art enthusiast Peter Fischer. She followed Michael to Washington University School of Law and St. Louis, where she’s planted roots, getting involved with organizations like COCA and the Saint Louis Fashion Fund in hopes of creating opportunities for other St. Louisans.
Tell me a little bit about your background…
I am a Miami girl. I left Miami when I went to college a year early from high school. My parents wanted me in a small school, as I was so young, so I went Grinnell College in Iowa, a small liberal-arts school where I met Michael, my husband. He is a St. Louisan. I followed him to St. Louis, where we went to Washington University Law School together.
So you’re a lawyer?
[She laughs.] I have always been more comfortable in creative endeavors, but I did go to law school…
Creative endeavors—possibly because of your background as a dancer?
I studied dance most of my young adult life. Early on, my mom tapped me into how to observe the world and write about it. She had me keep a little journal. Even before I could write, she would take me on walks and ask me to describe what I saw, and she would write that in the book. Then, when I learned to write, the book became my first writing journal.
So have you always been writing?
I have. I stopped during law school, and then it took me a while to get back to it. Two years ago, I started working on a novel, which I just finished.
I want to get to that more in a minute, but first tell me more about your background. You’re half Egyptian?
My father moved to this country from Cairo, Egypt when he was 23. He was trained as an architect. By the time I was in high school, he owned his own firm in Miami. I was always inspired by that and by his great love for this country and the opportunity it availed him. My mother is American born. He was Muslim, and she was Jewish. They represented something more than the stereotype of ignorance about each other’s customs and cultures—it was very unusual at that time. Their love overcame their differences.
Growing up in Miami, which is such a cultural city, must have also shaped you.
It was fun because everybody living there had some sort of story like that. Everybody was from someplace else in a lot of ways, even the established Miamians. There are people who brought such rich cultures—whether it was food, dance, music. There was so much passion, and it was very easy to feel passionate about so many things.
What was your first impression of St. Louis?
When Michael first brought me here, he showed me all of the highlights: the museums, the zoo, the opera, Forest Park… You just can’t help but be awed. And so many of them are free, which is why Michael and I feel so strongly about leveling the playing field, particularly for youth. A lot of that is access to culture and things like the mission of Saint Louis Fashion Fund.
Why is being involved so important to you?
We have a love of the city and a passion for equality and justice. Our hope is to be able to make right, in some ways, the inequity of the educational system and provide access to success—and more than success, access to an opportunity to succeed. For me, I watched what could happen with my father as an immigrant; he had opportunity to succeed, and look what he could accomplish. He was that story of somebody who came here with nothing and made a life for himself. I feel that it’s harder and harder for people to accomplish great things when they have so much up against them. To be able to do something at all that would bring some reprieve or a chance to do something unexpected with their life is what we are hoping to provide in some small way.
So do you want to discuss how that desire has moved you to be involved with the Saint Louis Fashion Fund and COCA, which also provides opportunity to young people?
For us, Fashion Fund is a way to love this city. The Garment District here was second to New York in the early part of the last century, and as far as fashion went in its heyday, St. Louis was on the map. There were companies making hats, hosiery, shoes, gloves, and St. Louis was known for shoes, for junior dresses. From 1938 to 1945, I believe it went from 1,200 employees to 6,000 workers, which was incredible, especially during wartime. Can you imagine if we brought that many jobs to downtown now—how it would enliven downtown, but also what it would do for those people who would otherwise not have that training or a job?
That was, for me, a twin kinship with my interest in COCA. Having been a dancer myself, I was drawn to COCA. I went to a school for the arts in Miami, and dance was everything to me. Dance and writing were how I spent all of my time. I was drawn to COCA because of the arts education, but I had no idea what COCA did and what they provide for kids in terms of outreach. The pre-professional program, which is made up of about 65 percent of kids who require scholarship assistance, changes generations. Since the inception of the pre-professional program, 100 percent of those kids go on to either secondary education or to further their career in the arts. The new co-artistic director Antonio Douthit-Boyd is an example. He came home to St. Louis after a successful career with Alvin Ailey, and I think he said that he never really left here. The thing that drives me at COCA and the reason I am so excited to be on the board is because of that pre-professional program. A lot of the kids who do go on to college or train in the arts are the first in their families to go on to college or higher education. That’s also generation-changing—that’s life-changing!
As far as the skilled labor part of Fashion Fund, that’s the same thing. They go hand in hand for me. You can change an individual’s life—it’s a ripple effect. It changes the individual, the family, the community, the city. So if you can’t directly influence what’s going on in the schools, then you do it in a different way. COCA and bringing back the garment district are just examples. The Fashion Fund’s incubator is the first step; the fund can make the incubator happen, and the incubator attracts new designers and manufacturers. Again, it’s the ripple effect.
Tell me about your novel.
It's called Disposable Girl. It is the story of a young girl who lost everything as a child. As a teenager, a family comes into her life that changes her outlook on what’s possible. This family and her relationship with the children and their parents make her believe that her life doesn’t just have to be sadness. She realizes she's much stronger than she thought.
Now that you have completed the novel, do you plan to continue writing?
I’m already working on another, also fiction—possibly a thriller. That was kind of a surprise, but the idea came to me in the midst of writing the other novel. I had a vision of something while I was driving, and I thought, "That’s what I’m doing next!" But now I’m so busy with COCA and Fashion Fund! [Laughs.]
I do feel like it’s not exactly coincidental that all of these things are happening simultaneously. Once you start recognizing your passion, you are open to so much more. You’re voracious, you’re feeling yourself, and you’re just hungry. The writing has been such a journey, and Michael has been the most amazing partner; I’ll have these moments where I doubt what I’m doing, and he will just redirect me and calm me and tell me to keep writing.
Do you write on a schedule?
No, I don’t have a regular schedule, and I didn’t have an outline until close to the end of the book. I tried to stay engaged with it. If I was really at a loss, I would work on a segment of the book that I didn’t know whether I would keep. But I would write from a different character’s perspective, just so I could get more comfortable with that character. Or I might do something as simple as look at Pinterest and be inspired by compelling images. Some of it was almost validation, like, "This world I’m creating does exist!" The novel takes place in a fictional Florida town. I got to write about teenagers and things I remember, like how your toes feel in the sand or how you smell from the sunshine when you come in from playing. Those are all great memories that I could use from growing up—those experiential things.
How did you develop an interest in fashion?
As a young person, I had some very theatrical influences. There was ballet and costumes—all of this fantasy and over-the-top influences. My grandmother was a heavyset woman who would rock a fur or an epaulet; she had this far-ranging style, but also a sense of glamour. My mother’s sister and I used to go through Vogue together… My mom was a true-to-the-end hippy. She gave me an interest in other cultures; different color palettes and textures; and finding beauty in more than the superficial. She was a free spirit.
How does that translate to your style today?
I like to try on different personas and just play… It’s fun to give people the chance to morph, to try on different personas, which I can do with clothing. I have lots of moods—as Michel can attest to—and you dress for those. It’s like when you’re a performer or a dancer; it becomes art.
Tell me about your tattoos.
They’re another way of dressing. The newest one, the fiddlehead ferns [which snake gracefully up the inside of her forearm in varying shades of green] are about growth and potential. The lotus and Alhambra symbol bring to mind a lot of visuals of the Middle East and my heritage. And then I have a quote from [poet Pablo] Neruda on my side.
One thing that is hilarious about my tattoos is that Muslims and Jews are not supposed to have tattoos. [Laughs.] My cousin once said she so admired me because I just did what I wanted and didn’t care what people thought. I couldn’t believe she thought of me as the rebel, because I was always the good girl—a goody two shoes!
It must be your free spirit.
Maybe too much sometimes!
