AN/A A Non-Agency®’s Champions of Success, Chicago

The Champions of Success Fashion Awards brought to light for the first time just how much exceptional BIPOC talent there is here in Chicago, talent worthy of appearing on New York, Paris and Kenya fashion stages.

CHICAGO (PRWEB)
June 16, 2023

In a first for Chicago’s burgeoning fashion community, “AN/A A Non-Agency®’s Chicago Leadership Escape” Champions of Success Fashion Awards recently honored local fashion design talent and awarded them the opportunity to showcase their designs in the NOIR New York, Paris and Kenya Fall Fashion Weeks. Specifically, on June 12, at SOPHY® Hyde Park in Chicago, a judge committee of fashion industry heavy weights selected three winners from a field of local designers who submitted their designs and backgrounds.

According to Michelle Collins, President and CXO of AN/A A Non-Agency®, a consumer experience creative consultancy based in New York which conceived and sponsored the event, “The mission for our Chicago Leadership Escape was to create new opportunities for creatives and designers to gain exposure for their talent here in Chicago, where historically they have faced real barriers to the visibility and recognition they so deserve, something that their counterparts in New York, Paris and London do not face. The Champions of Success Fashion Awards brought to light for the first time just how much exceptional BIPOC talent there is here in Chicago, talent worthy of appearing on New York, Paris and Kenya fashion stages.”

Among the three top winners were:

More than 21 designers entered the Awards competition, submitting their fashion designs and qualifications earlier this month.

“We had a tremendous response to our call for submissions within a short period of time, testament to the appetite for the opportunity from local fashion creatives and the barriers they must overcome,” noted Marquan Jones, President of the Chicago Fashion Coalition, a non-profit with the mission to disrupt and elevate the city’s fashion community by building a platform to centralize resources and connect members, who also served as one of the judges.

“I was deeply impressed by the designers’ genuine desire to showcase their work throughout the application process,” remarked Nichole M. Bess, Founder & CEO of NOIR Fashion Week (formerly known as New York Fashion Week BLK). “AN/A Chicago Leadership Escape has truly opened doors for the community. I am thrilled to introduce Summer Han, Kaine Bautista and Chelsea Billingsley to global platforms in New York, Paris and Kenya with NOIR Fashion Week.”

In addition to the Awards, AN/A Chicago Leadership Escape offered other unique opportunities for local designers to showcase their artistry and learn important lessons from industry leaders and creatives including:

• A “CHICAGO PRIDE #ChampionsofChicagoFashion” themed awards event with Chicago Artist Sam Kirk’s banners as a backdrop for all designer entrants to come showcase their designs and talent.
• A workshop debuting the first AI-empowered Fashion Technology and Artistry community co-founded by CFC, AN/A and Chicago Artist Sam Kirk, a Latina queer artist who grew up on the South Side of Chicago
• A presentation, “CHI Emerging Designer Leadership Summit,” by CEO of NOIR Fashion Week Nichole M. Bess where the future of the fashion industry, trends, sustainability, and best practices for designers were discussed.

AN/A Chicago Leadership Escape represents the second time Collins brought the spotlight to Chicago’s fashion and art community; in November 2022, she sponsored and hosted the ‘Champions of Success’ panel discussion, the keynote social event at the Chicago Escape Brand Closet Showroom Social where fashion, art, and retail industry executives and thought leaders, as well as emerging designers and artists, explored issues pertaining to the survival and transformation of Chicago’s fashion industry. It was the first visit to Chicago by the new President of CFDA CaSandra Diggs and a rare opportunity for local Chicago artists, designers and entrepreneurs to share their concerns and needs with such industry leadership.

“AN/A A Non-Agency® was founded seven years ago under the premise of bringing together the best-of-the-best creative, technical and experiential marketing talent to fashion, retail, hospitality and other brands,” said Collins. “Today that vision remains the foundation of our initiative to foster a creator’s economy comprised of creatives, designers, artists and technologists where we build and bring communities to meticulously-curated brand experiences.”

About A/NA A Non-Agency

Michelle Collins is President and CXO of A Non-Agency®, a consumer experience creative consultancy based in New York. The firm was ranked #413 on the Inc. 5000 for 2020, and in 2022, among Inc. magazine’s Regionals List for the Northeast. AN/A maintains a small, highly-specialized and meticulously-selected team of Directors of Creative, Strategy, Experience Design, Fabrication and Technology, to ideate and produce the next evolution of installations that are changing the way consumers experience and buy brands. Luxury and other global brands, including Richemont N. America, Van Cleef & Arpels, Kate Spade, Google Play, and Delta Airlines have tapped A Non-Agency® to develop and deploy their first experiential marketing strategies and installations.

Among Collins’ most recent projects is the award-winning “AN/A Brand Closet Showroom Social,” an immersive hospitality/retail platform that allows travelers and locals to experience a hospitality property and the community around it by bringing luxury and emerging brands and designers, artists, wellness experts and food/wine/spirits purveyors to the property to create a unique social engagement program and showroom space where hotel guests and other ticketed guests can relax, discover artistry and designers, enjoy personal shopping, sample food, wine and spirits, socialize and support local community organizations, all while enjoying all the amenities the hotel itself has to offer, cultivating a destination experience.

Collins, a Forbes Business Council Member, and her work have been featured in such publications as Forbes, WWD, design:retail, Retail Touch Points, Total Retail, Event Marketer, Retail Wire, Modern Restaurant Management, VMSD, Pride Media, Commercial Property Executive, Authority Magazine, Canvas Rebel, Voyage, Chicago Reader, WGN (Chicago), KESQ (Palm Springs), and DFXCA (Palm Springs). ###

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