AK Brown’s Black in St. Louis Fashion rebrands into FWRDSociety

Rebrands can be necessary. Often they entail revitalizing a former system and reimagining it into a new and improved configuration. Typically the revamp is more helpful than harmful, and usually turns out to be much better than before.

AK Brown, fashion expert and entrepreneur, recently restructured her former editorial project and nonprofit Black in St. Louis Fashion into FWRDSociety.

Originally Black in St. Louis Fashion launched as a photo editorial spotlighting the city’s hottest and most promising Black and Brown fashion brands and creatives. The St. Louis American featured the project in 2021 and 2022. The editorial then led to an initiative for Brown and the other creatives to share resources, find funding opportunities, and build community.

With a new name and new mission, FWRDSociety now focuses on foundational support by providing pro bono media relation and branding services. 

Brown realized the rebrand was needed when she saw there were other fashion nonprofits, groups and entities in St. Louis ultimately with the same mission as Black in St. Louis Fashion. Rather than create unnecessary competition she felt it was imperative for all the organizations to coexist and collaborate. Her pivot to FWRDSociety led her and the board of directors to have a very open and candid conversation about what the organization needed.

“We’re partnering with companies in St. Louis giving our community services at little to no cost or we’re sharing our community with other fashion groups, it creates a healthier ecosystem,” Brown said. “We connect our community with organizations like Saint Louis Fashion Fund and get our community members funding from them. We select members that we feel could benefit from pro bono branding, media training, and public relations services.”

Through FWRDSociety, Brown and the rest of the board has unveiled FASHNNXT, a 6-month-long one-of-a-kind program including designers, stylists, photographers, sustainable brands, and more. The program “helps them develop a solid foundation that supports the growth of their small business and provides them with PR and branding services needed to help them reach the next level in their journey of expansion.”

This first inauguration includes 12 members that Brown and the board handpicked, but she said in the future they will enforce an application process for the next go round.

“We had a two-hour board meeting that turned into five hours, because we wanted to ensure that we picked the right candidates,” she said.

She said they extended the list from ten to 12 because there were two people they could not see being on the list. The list includes Dara Hamilton, owner and founder of Gem U Vintage, Melanie Pruitt, owner of The Style Vault Boutique and more.

Hamilton, runs an online consignment store specializing in vintage finds 20 years or older. Her pieces can also be found in Make Manifest BK in Brooklyn, NY, Procure by The Women's Creative in City Foundry, Lou, Belle and Bing in Collinsville, IL, and Honeycomb in Tower Grove.

Fashion has always been a part of Hamilton’s life. She remembers growing up seeing her grandmother’s interest in fashion and interior design, and seeing her great-grandmother “junkin” (another term for thrift shopping). Seeing the great taste and fashion interests of both women.

Hamilton said she is honored to have been selected for the FASHNXT cohort.

“It was an honor to be seen, I’ve been back here [in St. Louis] for about three years, I was living in Brooklyn, NY,” she said. “To come back and make an impact and continue making an impact means a lot to me. I am truly honored and blessed that AK chose me. I hope to connect with other creatives, share like minded opinions, network and make St. Louis more visible in the fashion world. I feel like we have a lot of potential here and it's not seen. I believe this is going to get St. Louis back on the map.”

Pruitt has always been known as a friend to style her friends and has had many other people ask for her assistance in styling them. Like most people in 2020, she had more free time on her hands. She decided then to launch her online boutique and start styling people as a side hustle.

“I love what I do, not even just the styling and curating of collections,” Pruitt said. “I love when I get messages from women and they’re like, ‘Oh my God I bought this dress and I’ve gained weight. I wasn't really feeling myself or feeling my body, but I bought this and it made me feel good about myself, it made me feel great.”

Pruitt said that as an online boutique she doesn’t get much interaction with people in person but the cohort will allow her the opportunity to connect and meet with people outside of her warehouse’s walls.

Pruitt is available on social media platforms under her business name The Style Vault Boutique. Her website is https://thestylevaultboutique.com/.

FASHNXT will help fashion creatives with their resumes, help pitch them to local outlets in St. Louis and across the country, be featured on the cover of Brown’s Pink Muse magazine, and be featured on her TV show which airs in 101 countries and five continents. Learn more about Pink Muse, here: https://www.pinkmusestudio.com/issues.

While Black people have always been integrated and centered around Brown’s organization, she has since opened up the organization to BIPOC creatives to increase more inclusivity among Black and Brown fashion creatives.

“We have two Latinx members currently in the cohort,” she said. “Our organization is always going to be Black first and foremost, because it's how we identify. We wanted to open the community up to other minority groups in fashion in St. Louis because there aren’t any other groups doing that.”

For sponsorship & media inquiries, email hello@hautepresspr.com. For donations and more information email info@fwrdsociety.org.