Kevin A. Roberts
It wasn’t always fashion for Dwight Carter. First, it was music. The grandson of a musician, Carter once produced music festivals and managed bands. When his grandfather died, his grandmother shared a story: The man never saw a penny from the two albums he produced in the early 1940s. “My goal was to do the opposite of that and help bands build a following,” Carter says.
Young musicians gave way to budding designers, but after celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Pins and Needles fashion show, Carter announced another pivot, turning his attention to mid-career fashion designers with Fashion Anarchy, a four-part competition similar to Project Runway. The event, devoted to the Garment District, got underway in May; the third part is September 12, and at the finale, set for November 9 at The Last Hotel, Carter will crown the winner.
How does one go from music to fashion? Both of them are creatives and want to only create and not run a business—because that's a really hard part of the fashion industry. A lot of these designers come out of college not knowing about the business, like at all. It's the same thing with musicians because our focus is to be creative. So that's a similarity to where, instead of producing a concert, to where you know, you have to sell tickets, you have to build a house, you have to build a stage, you have sounding on lighting. It’s the same thing with a fashion show.
What is different about Fashion Anarchy in comparison to your previous shows? I decided to put together another concept that’s kind of the same thing [as Pins and Needles] but maybe the designer is the next level after being an emerging designer, and come up with a creative way for it to be a social media building event. I wanted to fill the void of the designer that is in that next stage. There's not a lot of rules. We provide the fabric, the hair and makeup, and the space at the Fashion Fund. We gave them a theme [The Garment District of the past, future, and present]. It looks kind of like a Project Runway episode.
What is the best part about having this behind-the-scenes role at events? I enjoy when a designer comes up to me and thanks me for the event, even if they didn't win. I don't really come out to the crowd a lot. I can put these events together and I kind of almost kind of hide, actually. The doors open I see people come in. I get to stay away for a while. So coming back out, and then someone says, “Oh, man, I had a good time” or, “This is a great experience, I can't wait to come back next year”—it's great. I like when people meet new people at my events, create relationships.
You’ve watched fashion in St. Louis shift for years. What are your hopes for its future? Our local fashion students when they graduate, that there's opportunities for them to work. I've had a lot of interns that are not here anymore. They intern for me for a while, they learn a lot, and then they move to New York or LA. They’re doing really well, but it would be nice to have something here besides just retail. Retail management and fashion merchandising are huge with all the universities because that's where they can get a job here. If you're a designer, it's like you're struggling, you have to have a part-time job or you have to figure out get funding from somebody. I would like more job opportunities, for even myself. I'm still trying to keep this whole vibe going, to create more fashion shows. I would like to get more people involved and funding—it's hard to do [this with] tiny budgets.
