Fashion Runway Has People Walk on
When Jamie Brewer strides down the catwalk during New York Style Week, she'll not simply be showing off an original design by Carrie Hammer, but she volition likewise go the first woman with Down syndrome to grace the runway.
"Young girls and even young women … [see me] and say 'hey, if she can exercise it so can I,'" says Brewer, an extra known for her work on "American Horror Story" and an abet for people with intellectual disabilities. "It'south a true inspiration beingness a office model for any immature women to [encourage them] in being who they are and showing who they are."
Brewer is modeling as function of Hammer's "Role Models Not Rails Models," a campaign the designer started when she was offset asked to show her line at Style Week a year ago. Hammer wanted to stand for the women who bought her designs and realized that featuring her clients—leaders of multibillion dollar businesses, heads of global nonprofits, pioneers of cutting-edge research, and women who just rock—would practise exactly that. For her kickoff bear witness, she invited her friend, Danielle Sheypuk, who uses a wheelchair, to be a model.
"I chosen upward my existing clients who were all incredible women and i of them happened to be a doctor and a sex therapist who happened to be in wheelchair," Hammer told TODAY.com. "Information technology was never intended to be this incredible statement."
Simply it was. Hundreds of women and girls contacted Hammer to thank her. One email stuck out: Every fourth dimension Hammer read it, she cried. It was from Katie Driscoll, co-founder of Changing the Face of Beauty, a nonprofit that encourages media to include people with disabilities. She wrote:
"Thank you for beingness the modify that is long overdue. I could literally cry every time I read an commodity talking most your decision to include a model who just happens to take a disability! YOU are what this earth needed!"
Driscoll'southward girl Grace was born with Down syndrome. Subsequently sharing her story with Hammer, Driscoll asked a favor.
"She asked if I would have a function model for Grace," Hammer says.
"Part Models Not Runway Models" took off, and Hammer received hundreds of nominations for women to model in her shows—including one from Karen Crespo, who lost her limbs to bacterial meningitis and longed to walk the track to heave her cocky esteem. She appeared in Hammer's fall Manner Week show. But the designer didn't forget nearly Grace. She asked Driscoll to suggest a good role model, and the mom immediately named Brewer.
"I explained to her how of import it is for my girl to have role models like [Brewer] to see that [anything] is possible," says Driscoll.
While most recognize Brewer for playing Addie in "American Horror Story: Murder Firm," Nan in "American Horror Story: Coven," and Marjorie in "American Horror Story: Freak Prove," she has long worked as an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities. At 19, she was elected to the State of Texas ARC Board; she also worked on the Executive Lath for the Land of Texas ARC and the Governmental Affairs Commission for the State of Texas, where she was the only member with a disability.
"Jamie is an activist for intellectual disabilities, she is a writer and artist and amazing actress," says Hammer.
Hammer designed a dress that she hopes plays up Brewer's fabulous qualities.
"'American Horror Story' is night, scary, bewitching so we had to go with black and Jamie has a cute body with a teeny waist and curves and nosotros went with an A-line," she says. The dress is also special for another reason—Hammer hopes that Beginning Lady Michelle Obama will clothing it.
For her part, Brewer feels excited for her spin down the runway.
"It'south amazing, it's actually neat. Many women take many sides to their personality, this dress fits...mine," she says. "I am honored to exist in it."
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