Wisconsin Life

On the waterfront, in the trendy Historic Third Ward, the new face of fashion is emerging.

- Lynne Dixon-Speller: We don't have a job.

We have a passion to let them know that fashion is in Milwaukee.

- Lynne Dixon-Speller is helping lead that charge at the Edessa School of Fashion.

– Lynne Dixon-Speller: Two, four, six, eight, ten, and then, we're going to create a velvet rope and lace up the back around the buttons.

We have already shown in New York Fashion Week, Chicago Fashion Week.

We've been invited to show in Kenya and Paris this year.

We've had our students' pictures on a billboard in Times Square.

That was amazing.

- Times Square!

- Hey, Edessa does it, baby!

– Angela: What's even more amazing... - Lynne: We've only been open a year and a half.

Edessa has been blessed with extremely talented first-year students.

So, because of that, we have something to show and something to brag about.

- She's just a golden student of the class.

- The fashion school offers traditional garment design along with non-traditional ways to fabricate style.

- They are teaching shoe making, jewelry making, lingerie, children's wear, formal wear, bridal wear, swimwear, things that are outside of the realm of your typical fashion school.

You'll see the corsets that were made in this class.

The patterns are created to fit exactly one person and one person only.

- From corsets to haute couture, these fashion students learn to accessorize.

- Lynne: Tonight, we're going to learn to implement chain into necklaces.

- As chair of the Edessa Design Department, Lynne sees hope in Milwaukee.

– Lynne: Look at these!

Is that gorgeous?

– Angela: Opportunity is all Lynne wanted when she decided to help form, construct, and pattern this school for success.

- Ah, now we're getting somewhere.

This has been the most difficult thing ever.

I had no idea what we signed up for, but I tell you what, we're not shrinking violets.

We're not running away.

We decorated the walls.

I painted the door.

I mean, it is personal.

- Personal in more ways than one because Edessa Meek Dixon, the namesake for the fashion school, was Lynne's grandmother.

- Lynne: She graduated Tuskegee Institute in 1920.

Nonetheless, a young black woman...

I felt there needed to be something built to honor that bravery, that academic prowess.

- Spending time with Grandma Edessa is a memory stitched in time.

- My grandmother sat me down in summers when I would go to visit, and taught me how to sew.

She was paramount in making that happen and providing me with the career and the chutzpah to do this.

And I felt that I owed her to name the school after her.

And fortunately, the team that helped develop Edessa, they all agreed.

At the same time, I felt that Milwaukee kids needed to see something named after someone like themselves.

- Those kids now see themselves on the cutting edge of fashion.

- It is like the World's Fair of Fashion for Milwaukee.

- This is Milwaukee Fashion Week.

It allows student designers to strut their stuff.

- Edessa has begun to develop a reputation for having a youthful, hip vibe.

But you know what we do?

We always have a 20-year-old in the room, and we listen to them.

- Just like Lynne listened to her grandmother when she offered this eternal piece of fashion advice.

– Lynne: Whatever it is, you don't know after you send it out into the world where it's going to end up.

But it's going to have your name on it, so it better be the best.

- Oh, it's reversible.

– Student: Yes.

- Okay, cool.

And I still tell my students that to this day.

I made a garment and let the garment go, sent it out into the world.

It ended up in the Smithsonian.

I've had another garment end up in Museum of Wisconsin Art.

This will do well for the gala.

- Those sewing lessons with Grandma became the fabric of Lynne's life as she keeps moving fashion forward.

– Lynne: It's almost as if everything we touch is telling the community we belong here, we have the right to be here, we are the best.