Patrick Kelly’s love of design began when he was a child in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and would see his mother, grandmother, aunties, and other women wearing elegant clothes to church. He soon realized that “when people look good, they feel good.”
The church members didn’t have a lot of money, though, and his grandmother explained to him that most made their own clothes, learning from their mothers and grandmothers. Although sewing wasn’t something that other boys did, his grandmother and mother showed him how. He gained inspiration from old fashion magazines that his grandmother found while cleaning the houses of wealthy White people. His first efforts were a mess, but with encouragement, he kept at it. By the time he was 13, was creating entire outfits and getting requests.
When he left Vicksburg for larger cities with more opportunities, however, people found his vibrant designs and unusual approach, like sewing buttons all over, “too tacky” and “too much.” As a Black man with a Southern accent, too, he didn’t fit in with the fashion world. He remembered the advice of his grandmother, however, and persisted, selling his designs on the street and making friends with others who “didn’t fit in growing up, so they weren’t afraid to spend their lives standing out.” They loved his designs and wore them often. Kelly became known in Paris, and when he was finally asked to do a runway show, created one that evoked the church gatherings of his youth. His models were “every color, shape, and size” and had fun wearing his fashions that incorporated buttons, toys, and other unexpected items.
After the show, his message to the models and all who wore his clothes was “you’re beautiful just the way you are.” To the media, he explained, “I want my clothes to make you SMILE.”
This is a lively and inspiring biography whose collage illustrations echo the playfulness of Kelly’s designs; endpapers are covered in images of buttons, other pages show “stitching” along the edges, and the characters are bright and bold. The main text doesn’t mention Kelly’s gay identity, but an afterward does, along with noting his “his life and business partner, Bjorn Amelan” and Kelly’s death from complications of AIDS. I would have liked to see Amelan noted in the main story, but this is otherwise a recommended biography that captures the spirit and importance of its subject. It would make a good read for a drag story time followed by an activity that evokes Kelly’s creativity—say, using buttons, bows, and other found items to decorate a t-shirt or make a collage.
