The arts can be a hard industry to work in before a creator gains popularity. After years of sticking with her craft, one Chicago-area fashion designer is starting to get more attention. WNIJ's Yvonne Boose visited her home studio in South Elgin to learn more about her career.
Kammarra Blalark’ Harris, who goes by Kammarra B, has been working in the field for about 15 years.
She led me to her basement filled with bins of fabric neatly lined against one side of the wall. A couple of worktables sat up front with a smaller one for her sewing machine.
Two mannequins stood front and center. One wore a long black skirt with a cape decorated with gold buttons on top. She said she was going for a military look, but also something soft and lady-like. Kammarra B normally sketches her designs first, but these are different. She went shopping first…and a certain fabric caught her eye.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is crocodile,'” she explained. “'Nobody has ever done nothing like this. Like, this piece is amazing.' And so, when I started to look at it, I just literally stared at it. I'm like, 'this would be a nice maxi skirt.'”
The other mannequin is draped in a red dress. It has strips of silver sequins that look like splashes of paint across the top and below a cutout midsection. The sleeves angle up sharply like butterfly wings.
Kammarra B attended Columbia College Chicago, where she learned how to make a cohesive collection and to think outside the box. She said she gets inspiration from the things around her. An example of that is when she visited the Field Museum in Chicago and first noticed the shapes.
“I looked at the birds and their wings,” she said. “I just feel like women, we are just so bold, and we can just soar, we can fly, we can do whatever we want to. We have pushed babies out; you know what I mean?”
Kammarra B started college studying jazz vocal performance. She grew up singing in church. Her father is a pastor, and all of her siblings are musical.
“My brother's a drummer, my other brother's a bass player,” she added. “My other brother plays the saxophone. The girls we sing, so music was just in us, just because [of] my mom.”
But she became disillusioned with the program, so after two years, she switched her major to fashion design.
Still, she said, her expectations of what that meant were off. She said her mom, being the pastor’s wife, is always stylish. She remembers how her mom would come up with designs and send them to the seamstress. So, Kammarra B thought all she had to do was sketch something.
“I had to learn garment construction,” she said. “When I failed garment construction one twice, I was about to give up. I'm like, “Mom, Dad, I don't want to do this no more. And they were like, ‘No, you [are] coming home?' ‘I'm like, ‘no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's okay. I'm going to actually figure this out.’”
And she did. She got a tutor but said being a junior while taking classes with freshmen intimidated her. She graduated in 2012.
More than a decade later, she had her first fashion show last October at the Chicago Cultural Center. She said it was a moment she manifested.
“And," she said, "I'm just like, ‘oh my God, oh my God,' you know, so I'm literally, calling people, different resources. I'm like, ‘hey, I need photographers, I need volunteers. I'm like, I can't pay anybody. I just really can't pay anybody.’”
In November, someone from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra contacted her. They were looking for four designers to take part in the “The Red Thread Fashion Show” and wanted some of her designs. They also wanted her to make two new pieces. Kammarra B agreed.
Kammarra B has regular clients, and she has an online store, but she has bigger goals. One is having her fashions in a store like Nordstrom. The other is to work as a costume designer for a movie.
Kammarra B has a message for others who may be struggling to make a name for themselves.
“If it's your passion," she said, "you got to do what you love, you can't think about the people. The Bible says your gift will make room for you. And it will open doors and faith without work is dead. So, you do the work, and God will do the rest.”
Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “The Red Thread Fashion Show” takes place at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24, at Orchestra Hall. There will be a welcome party and VIP reception prior to the event.
