How the Project Runway designer’s drive to create transformed her brand mission
Chicago Humanities held a Fashion in Chicago event on October 28, highlighting the work of sustainable fashion designer and Project Runway alum Chelsey Carter-Sanders.
Carter-Sanders stood up on stage to show the Chicago Humanities audience in the Feinberg Theater her latest creation: a deconstructed-reconstructed trench coat.
The single jacket is made from three different khaki-colored coats. Moderator Allison Glenn immediately said what audience members may have been thinking and asked Carter-Sanders when the design would be available to purchase.
The truth is, the exact trench coat Carter-Sanders wore is one of a kind because every piece made by her Chicago-based clothing brand, Alex Carter, is one of a kind.
When the coat, the Alex Carter Trench, became available to buy on November 12, the website clearly stated that the coat customers were purchasing would not be an exact replica of the version pictured online. Carter-Sanders sources materials from already made clothes to construct her designs, meaning every piece purchased from the brand is unique, exclusive and eco-friendly.
Carter-Sanders did not set out to build a career as a sustainable fashion designer in Chicago. Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, she originally planned to become a painter. That was until a teacher encouraged her to consider fashion design. Carter-Sanders was accepted into the Illinois Institute of of Art and moved to Chicago in 2006.
“I really owe the birth and success of the brand to the city of Chicago,” Carter-Sanders said in an interview two weeks before the event. “Because without it, I would not have anywhere near what I have acquired and obtained today. Chicago has been really the home and the birthplace of not only my personal growth but definitely my professional growth, too. I am forever grateful to the city.”
After college, Carter-Sanders began to build her brand by aligning herself with emerging artists in Chicago’s music scene like Chance the Rapper.
“I would design things for them to headline the Taste of Chicago or Pitchfork or Lollapalooza,” Carter-Sanders said. “In doing that, as their names grew, my name started to gain traction.”
That traction led to the producers of the hit reality television show Project Runway to recognize Carter-Sanders’s talent. Producers recruited Carter-Sanders for three years before she felt comfortable accepting their offer and signing up to participate in season 18 of the show.
With her usual fabric stores closed, Carter-Sanders began constructing one-of-a-kind pieces using T-shirts sent to her by a friend in California who owned a thrift store.
Filmed in New York, Carter-Sanders was away from her friends and family for two months. While she did not win the entire season, she consistently impressed the judges. She had the overall winning design for the “There is Only One You” challenge in episode six when the designers were tasked with creating an outfit that expressed their heritage. Carter-Sanders designed a bishop-sleeved, varsity jacket style dress. Her design paid homage to the educational achievements of her grandmothers.
Carter-Sanders credits her upbringing for the ease in which she is able to source high-quality garments to use in the construction of the Alex Carter pieces.
“Being resourceful. That steps back into a cultural phenomenon of just being a little Black girl, not given a lot,” Carter-Sanders said. “My grandmother, she taught me how to properly thrift. To find treasures in trash people had basically discarded. She taught me the gift of being able to really look deeply and intentionally in thrift stores and find great things.”
Her grandmother’s teachings would reemerge and reignite Carter-Sanders’ brand during one of the most difficult times in recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carter-Sanders found herself isolating with her then-boyfriend, now husband, at his family’s home in the Chicago suburbs when lockdown began. His mother was fighting for her life in a hospital intensive-care unit. The family received updates from a nurse over the phone, and were left to prepare for the worst while they remained at home.
She says the brand offers clients the exclusivity of owning a statement piece of clothing that no one else in the world has because of the brand’s dedication to sustainability by using textiles from pre-existing garments.
Her future mother-in-law’s sewing room became a place of solace for Carter-Sanders and her creativity became an outlet for her distress. With her usual fabric stores closed, Carter-Sanders began constructing one-of-a-kind pieces using T-shirts sent to her by a friend in California who owned a thrift store.
Carter-Sanders took the T-shirts apart and repurposed the fabric into entirely new pieces of clothing. The upcycled, one-of-a-kind dresses, tops and sweatsuits flew off the metaphorical shelves via Instagram.
Carter-Sanders’ mother-in-law survived her health crisis and Carter-Sanders recognized how that time in her life transformed her vision for Alex Carter.
“It was then that I realized that this upcycling point of view could really be a driving force,” Carter-Sanders said. “I realized that the brand was unconsciously, and in a lot of ways maybe consciously, creating a lane that we could travel down just all our own.”
Carter-Sanders describes Alex Carter’s aesthetic as modern, contemporary and unisex. She says the brand offers clients the exclusivity of owning a statement piece of clothing that no one else in the world has because of the brand’s dedication to sustainability by using textiles from pre-existing garments.
Jamie Hayes is another Chicago-based fashion designer who focuses on sustainable practices through her brand and storefront, Production Mode. Hayes attended Columbia College and earned her master’s degree at the University of Chicago. She has a background in labor rights and said sustainable fashion brands in Chicago are inextricably linked with ethical fashion.
Purchasing from sustainable fashion brands like Alex Carter or Production Mode may provide some customers with peace of mind knowing factory workers were not exploited in the making of their clothes.
A father and daughter observe pieces by Chelsey Carter. Photo by Elizabeth Gregerson.
“Our industry is so small here,” Hayes said. “People like me and Chelsey are working directly with our stitchers or we’re stitching it ourselves. If we’re working with a very small contractor, it’s often a woman’s basement in Berwyn, it’s not a huge factory. Most of us who are independent designers don’t have that kind of volume and so we’re really connected.”
Carter-Sanders’ connection to her work is apparent as she speaks with Glenn on stage, reflecting on her accomplishments and how far she has come.
Speaking before the event through email, Glenn recalled meeting Carter-Sanders through their mutual friend, Chicago hairstylist Yolanda Trejo, and how she has seen Alex Carter’s growth.
“[I] have been watching her star rise alongside the creative development of her work,” Glenn said. “Her fashion sense is so fresh and unique, and her approach to sustainability is a smart one.”
After Carter-Sanders and Glenn wrapped up their conversation on the Fienberg Theater stage, Carter-Sanders greeted audience members in the theater’s atrium where four mannequins wearing Alex Carter stood on display.
All the mannequins featuring the fashion pieces by Chelsey Carter. Photo by Elizabeth Gregerson.
The outfits being shown were denim designs from Alex Carter’s’ Spring 2023 collection “Fields,” where Carter-Sanders utilized denim to tell the story of how enslaved African Americans were forced to harvest the indigo dye that gives denim its color.
The collection, displayed in an exhibit at the WNDR Museum earlier this year, showcases Carter-Sanders’ creativity and skill. Each piece demonstrates a unique way to use denim through delicate straps, soft fringe, drapery and patchwork.
Photo by Elizabeth Gregerson
Carter-Sanders encouraged everyone to walk up and touch the clothing, inviting them to see how each piece was constructed from other garments. Many people stepped forward, while others stood still, seemingly mesmerized by the designer’s grace. When a young fan walked up, Carter-Sanders engaged them in a quiet conversation that ended in a warm embrace.
Carter-Sanders’ influence on the sustainable fashion movement in Chicago and at large has continued to grow, but the influence of the community she has created around Alex Carter seems to be the deepest source of inspiration.
“When you’re me and you’re behind the machine, you don’t really know the impact it will have,” Carter-Sanders said. “It’s beautiful to watch the impact of this unfold, I’m extremely grateful for that.”
Photo by Elizabeth Gregerson
Header by Elizabeth Gregerson
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