Industry panel (presented by I+W): SOUTHERN FASHION NOW

Industry panel (presented by I+W): SOUTHERN FASHION NOW

Time: 3:00pm- 4:30pm
Location: Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Buy Tickets: Click Here
SOUTHERN FASHION NOW
An exploration of trends, characteristics, and the national and international affect of modern Southern design and designers.

Panelists: Dana Thomas, Matt and Carrie Eddmenson, Phillip Nappi, Jamie Frazier and Hannah Jones
Panel moderated by Libby Callaway, writer, author and media director of Imogene + Willie

DANA THOMAS is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, published by the Penguin Press in 2007 and is a contributing editor for “WSJ,” the Wall Street Journal’s monthly magazine. She began her career writing for the Style section of the Washington Post, and from 1995 to 2011, she served as a cultural and fashion correspondent for Newsweek in Paris. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, the Financial Times, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Architectural Digest and Elle Décor and was the European editor of Condé Nast Portfolio. Thomas is a member of the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris and the Overseas Press Club. She taught journalism at The American University of Paris from 1996 to 1999. In 1987, she received the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Scholarship and the Ellis Haller Award for Outstanding Achievement in Journalism. She lives in Paris. She has just completed three months as a writer in residence at the Savannah College of Art and Design, working on a new book.

PHILLIP NAPPI is co-founder of the Italian hand made boot and shoe company, Peter Nappi (named for his grandfather, an immigrant shoemaker who arrived in America in 1904). Peter Nappi offers boots, bags and other dry goods, rich in old world tradition and craftsmanship. The boots are made in Italy by a family who has been handcrafting footwear for over 60 years. The 4,000 square foot Peter Nappi studio in Nashville’s historic Germantown neighborhood showcases luxury leather boots and bags, as well as hand picked, one-of-a-kind vintage European furniture. The brand has been covered in Harper's Bazaar, Men's Fitness, Bon Appetit and Esquire. In January 2013, a Peter Nappi exhibit is planned Pitti Uomo in Florence, Italy. Read more about Phillip Nappi’s business at www.peternappi.com.

JAMIE FRAZIER and HANNAH JONES are the Nashville fashion designers behind Jamie and the Jones. The duo discovered their mutual appreciation for slow process design as sophomores at O’More College of Design in Franklin, Tenn. The results were unanimously positive: their skill at creating clothes that combine clean silhouettes with painstaking handwork (knitting, crochet, embroidery, beading, and hand painting are all hallmarks of Jamie and Hannah’s smart, feminine wares). Since graduating in 2009, Frazier and Jones have continued to produce their line from their studio inside Local Honey, Nashville's premiere source for independent design. Jamie and the Jones. have been featured in publications including Nylon, Elle.com, the Nashville Scene, Her Nashville, and the Tennessean. In 2011, they opened the first-ever Nashville Fashion Week. A month later, and they were awarded the Belcourt Theatre’s nD Emerging Designer Competition, through which they were awarded a stipend to produce a capsule collection that was presented alongside the work of two nationally known designers. Read more about Frazier and Hannah at www.jamieandthejones.com.

MATT and CARRIE EDDMENSON, owners of the Nashville-based fashion company Imogene + Willie, share a long and varied history in the fashion industry. Both started their careers at Sights Denim Systems, formerly the world’s preeminent denim development laboratory and premium finisher, located in Henderson, Ky. Matt worked in product development and design at Sights Denim Systems for four years. During this tenure, he worked with design houses including Earnest Sewn, Elie Tahari, Billy Reid, Rogan, American Rag, and RRL to develop fits, finishes and branding. Matt holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. (Carrie’s background is detailed above.) They share a long history both personally and professionally. At age 11, they met as schoolmates in Hendersonville, Ky. After high school, they went their separate ways until 2003, when they found themselves back in their hometown, working for Sights Denim. Love blossomed, and they were married in 2006. In 2009, Matt and Carrie left Henderson and headed to Nashville, where Imogene + Willie was born. Visit the I+W website at www.imogeneandwillie.com

Panel moderator LIBBY CALLAWAY has contributed to some of the country’s most widely regarded magazines and newspapers, including the New York Post, where she was employed as a writer and editor from 1997 to 2004. Libby is an in-demand freelance fashion and travel writer, penning articles for publications and websites including Elle, the New York Times’ T Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Style.com, Travel + Leisure, Budget Travel, Self, BlackBook, Nylon and Glamour, where she was a fashion advice columnist in 2006 and 2007. In Nashville, Libby has written for a variety of publications including the Nashville Scene and the Nashville City Paper, where for two years she wrote a popular weekly style column. A former wardrobe stylist and vintage clothing dealer, Libby is a noted secondhand shopping expert; her professional advice on the subject has appeared in InStyle, Elle, Lucky, US, Nylon, Harper’s Bazaar, Budget Travel and Style.com, and on NBC’s The Today Show. Libby joined the staff of Nashville’s Imogene + Willie as media director in 2011, the same year Hyperion published her first book, The American Pickers Guide to Picking, a collaboration with her friend Mike Wolfe of the History Channel’s TV show American Pickers.