We all enjoy expressing ourselves one way or another, and with expression comes finding our true selves and starting that journey. What if there was an opportunity for our youth to express themselves through fashion, focusing on the drag and LGBTQ+ community?
Well, listen up.
Factory Fashion is providing many new opportunities and chances for people to explore themselves in that realm with their new program, Drag Tween-Teen Fashion. Skye Barker Maa, the owner of Factory Fashion, will be working with many different instructors, including local designer Darlene C. Ritz, to put together a safe place to learn and grow for students.
Factory Fashion is a company that is providing many opportunities for kids to explore and refine their fashion skills. In completing the program’s courses, participants get the chance to showcase their talents and experiences during a performance at the end of January.
Factory Fashion sprouted from an arts collective called Factory Five Five and has been in business for about a year now. Factory Five Five offers theater programming that includes adult professional plays, a film program, and this new fashion program. Barker Maa decided at this point that she would like to see all the creative departments working together.
The idea of Factory Fashion begins inside the walls of Factory Five Five. As Barker Maa was noticing her students’ technical interests in participating in shows behind the scenes, she started holding costuming classes.
Barker Maa’s passion for fashion had always been a part of who she was and with students showing up trying to express themselves that way, she decided she wanted to help foster their journey.
“I have always had a pretty strong love of fashion of my own and always knew I was going to do something with fashion design and with sewing and it evolved very quickly,” said Barker Maa.
A Closer Look into Factory Fashion
Drag is something that has been around for as long as we can imagine. The first recorded use of drag was seen in 1870. This brought a whole new side to fashion that was exciting and over the top. Not only did this expand fashion for everyone, but it also provided individuals with a different way to express themselves.
Drag is a side of fashion that is continuously growing and is very complex. That’s why Barker Maa wants to provide the learning experience of working with intricate fabrics and embellishments for her students.
Throughout her classes, students will obtain hands-on experience with things like wig stacking and sewing, as well as finding and creating a look and makeup.
Factory Fashion currently has quite a few different programs like basic sewing. They also offer several courses for students to continue learning, including a fashion design track and a sewing track. Throughout the sewing track, participants learn basic sewing skills. In the fashion track, students explore how to create their own look and take them all the way to the plate of construction.
Barker Maa explained that several of her students are members of the LGBTQ+ community and some were already attending classes in cosplay or drag.
After watching her students, she decided she wanted to help them and provide skills to learn.
Barker Maa realized that her students who were showing up to class in drag were making a lot of their own clothes, so she started asking them “how they would feel about learning how to use these non-traditional fabrics and embellishments so that the garment is fully constructed,” she said. There was so much positive energy around this idea, leading to the creation of the new program.
When she first started offering sewing classes, one of Barker Maa’s former employees who hosts a Sunday Tea as a local drag performer came to her immediately expressing interest. The result was the creation of a program meant to foster self-discovery, regardless of age.
Darlene C. Ritz
Ritz teaches some of the basic sewing classes and helped design the curriculum. When Barker Maa decided to roll out this program, she said that Ritz was already a natural to be involved because she has already been working with and designing clothes for the LGBTQ+ community. Therefore, Ritz will be coming on as the sewing and fashion design instructor.
Ritz’s first full-time job in the fashion industry began in New York in 1995 and she has been working in the fashion scene ever since. She has worked in many different fashion realms, most recently as an instructor. Ritz has shown collections in Denver Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, and London Fashion Week.
Throughout her time in the fashion industry, Ritz has always been working with the LGBTQ+ community. She has been designing costumes for DeMarcio Slaughter on the main stage of Pride Fest since 2016. As a result, becoming involved in the drag and LGBTQ+ community “happened organically,” said Ritz.
Ritz has been teaching fashion design since 2003. Throughout this new program, she will be working with the emerging drag queens to help them establish their aesthetic and style.
“Vision and talent come from the student, what I bring is skill,” Ritz said. Her job is to help the garments fit together to become a perfect finished product.
Ritz is very passionate about the work that she does and the people that she works with. Additionally, she strives to give back to the community in the process. She has shown pieces in fashion shows put on by the Red Ball Organization, that raises money to care for people who are living with HIV and aids. “This organization is feeding the hungry and healing the sick – to be able to use my needle and thread to be able to do that means the world to me,” Ritz said.
Ritz saw what Factory Fashion was doing for younger students and is eager to see the next generation of fashion starting to blossom.
After All The Hard Work
Drag is a fascinating realm of fashion as well as another element of both fashion design and sewing. Through this new program, Barker Maa strives for her students to walk away with tangible skills to create clothing and looks in any environment.
At the end of everyone’s hard work and with the amazing skills they learned, a fashion show will be held at the Stanley Marketplace.
Barker Maa is thankful for both her students and the opportunity to offer this program to the Colorado fashion community. For Ritz, the same sense of fulfillment emerges.
“It is so great to see so many people being authentically who they are and not having to be anything else,” said Ritz.
Updated on Jan. 10, 2022