Lexington, KY - For the past few years, Lexington's emerging fashion industry has been carving out a niche in the local culture, with runway shows having suddenly turned into as viable a source of event entertainment as live music or dance performances.
At the helm of the local movement is Soreyda Begley, a mother of three whose interest in fashion started when she was about 5 years old, teaching herself to sew by hand and daydreaming about "glamorous gowns and fantastic shows." Begley entered a sewing academy in her native Honduras when she was 13 and worked in Honduran clothing factories throughout much of her adolescence, gaining a firsthand experience of the grueling work conditions that have led to these factories being more commonly referred to as "sweatshops." Though she didn't realize how bad it was at the time, the conditions she endured in those factories are the basis for much of her work today.
"I want to change the system of the industry," said Begley. "I think the only way to change it is as an insider, providing people with options (to buy locally made clothing)."
Begley, who is married to Transylvania University professor Chris Begley and has lived in Lexington for just over a decade, regularly gives presentations at colleges and social justice events about the fair trade movement, which emphasizes living wages, sustainability and safe and sanitary working conditions. She stresses that an item doesn't have to be Fair Trade certified to be fair trade.
"You can buy from a local manufacturer, and that's fair trade because you're buying from a person who has not abused other human beings in the process," she said.
Begley, who said her dreams of becoming a fashion designer always felt out of reach while she was growing up, co-organized Lexington's first "Future of Fashion" show in 2009, a hugely successful event that engaged local fashion designers, models, hair and make-up artists and fashion photographers. The success of the show revealed a pool of local talent that previously had no outlet and led Begley to help found a co-op called the Lexington Fashion Collaborative, which aims to bring awareness to Lexington's growing fashion scene and to provide local fashion artists with a platform to display their work.
"All these people came out of nowhere," she said. "No doubt about it, the talent is here; it just needs to be supported and embraced and encouraged a little more."
Much of Begley's work with the Fashion Collaborative, which participated in more than 20 events in 2010, is about introducing emerging designers and others looking to break into the industry to the local resources and people who can help them.
"I get e-mails every day from people who want to start modeling but just don't know how to get into it, or a photographer who just doesn't know where to start," she said. "I'm just trying to make connections - that's how we basically work, trying to help this development. We can provide people a network."
She admits that the artistic undercurrent of the fashion industry often gets buried, especially in a community that doesn't have a long history of runway shows.
"People sometimes don't have the artistic connection with fashion runway shows - they think, 'Who's gonna wear that?'" she said. "It's an element that people aren't so familiar with anymore; they go to the rack and buy the most comfortable thing to wear. (But) it's not about utility or being practical sometimes; it's an art form that uses the human body as a base for the artwork."
Begley admits that helping keep up the administrative aspects of the new organization, which is in the process of becoming a 501c3, has cut into her sewing time to a certain extent. But creating something that will potentially benefit many artists and models well into the future takes precedence in her life right now.
"It has such a momentum right now," she said. "I just don't want to see it die."