As the flowers bloom along with a dusty pollen season, so does the bold fashion work of business owner and designer Chanel Nelson-Green, who is having her first solo show, “Flourish,” on Thursday, April 25 during RVA Fashion Week (RVAFW) spring season.
If you’re unfamiliar, RVAFW is an organization dedicated to helping emerging and established fashion designers, as well as other creative artists, to grow their social platform and make connections within the fashion industry. Its fashion season consists of spring and fall, as well as Virginia Swim Week, which is hosted during the summer.
Nelson-Green’s “Flourish,” which will be hosted at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design on Monument Avenue, will share over 30 sets of new looks she designed. The solo show builds off her previous collection, “Bloom,” and will also commemorate her recent transition to motherhood; she now has a 7-month-old son. The design process took over three months late last year due to her stepping back after becoming a new mother.
“Working on being a mom and a business owner, I think there’s so many beautiful things in it,” she says. “But also, just trying to multitask, it’s all about dividing your time and managing your time.”
Nelson-Green owns and operates her own boutique, Liznel, at 306 East Grace St., which sells her designs and hand-selected pieces. The brand is known for its iconic bright and bold business wear. From structured, double-breasted power suits to puffy polka dot tops, Liznel is rooted in it designer’s love of corporate wear and her desire to empower other women through clothes and their own individual silhouettes.
“I love how I get to take back the power of what a power suit is,” she says. “The power suit was all about the man. It was all about what he could do, the power that he could have. And I feel like putting a woman in a power suit, it’s like, ‘this isn’t just for you.”
Historically, women in the workplace were forbidden to wear dress pants—only dresses or separates (such as skirts)—because they were expected to leave employment for marriage, according to Harper’s Bazaar contributing editor and writer Lucy Halfhead. It was only until the 20th century when the power suit, a matching set of a shoulder-pad blazer and dress pants, came to play.
“Such choices give women a level of freedom that should not be taken for granted,” she says. “But they can also place a psychological burden. More choice means more pressure to get it right.”
While Nelson-Green is an established and well-respected leader within the growing fashion community in Richmond, her past life working in the corporate world was a far cry from a glamorous job in fashion.
From bland to bold
In the mid-2000s, Nelson-Green worked in corporate banking for 10 years. From call centers to becoming a personal banker, she found the occupations unsatisfying.
“I was like, ‘I hate this,’” she says. “I need to find what I’m really passionate about.”
She came from a family legacy of fashion. Her grandmother was a sewer and sold her designs as a side hustle, while her mother was also a sewer as well as a fashion model. In addition, Nelson-Green’s colleagues and closest friends would often ask her for styling and shopping advice.
“I just realized, ‘Oh, I have this thing for fashion and I have this passion’,” she says. “I wanted to follow my dreams.”
After Nelson-Green began to transition to fashion designing and styling, around 2017, she met and began to work with RVA Fashion Week’s co-founder, Jimmy Budd, a former Style Weekly Top 40 under 40 winner. As she became more deeply involved with RVAFW, Budd noticed that Nelson-Green “talks like an executive.”
“I was blessed to be able to hire her,” he says. “That [had] always been a goal of mine to hire an executive director.”
Throughout the years, Nelson-Green has featured her designs at RVAFW for every other fashion season and says she has also been invited to showcase designs at New York Fashion Week, D.C. Fashion Week and even London Fashion Week.
She attributes some of her hard work ethic and sense of purpose to her family.
“My dad did a really good job with making sure we [me and my brother] knew we were Black,” Nelson-Green laughs. “[My parents] let us know the struggles they have encountered to make sure that we know. They don’t ever want us to forget our legacy and our heritage.”
In late-2022, Nelson-Green was officially appointed RVAFW’s executive director, a job that oversees and administers all operations and curates fashion seasons. She also serves as a mentor to other emerging designers, passing along hard-earned lessons to the next generation.
She says it’s a hard job, but it has its joys, too. “Leadership carries weight. You want to hold people accountable and make them better, but you also want to level them, too,” she says. “Figuring out that balance can be great, but at times, it can be difficult.”
Budd compares his colleague to a famous female superhero: “Opening up Liznel as a boutique, now having a newborn. I mean, she’s a wonder woman with what she’s accomplishing right now.”
Like a boss
While this spring season has no theme, it will lean towards luxury wear. In the past, RVAFW typically has not hosted solo fashion shows dedicated to one designer due to the high production costs. But the idea for this show was considered by the organization’s board of directors; and Budd says that Nelson-Green showing this can be done could prove inviting to other major designers.
While Nelson-Green could not give a peek behind the curtains just yet, she says she will be continuing her vibrant business wear pieces, using models of all different shapes and sizes on the runway.
The designer says she often asks herself these questions when working with her models: “How do we make you look beautiful on the runway? How do we cater to different women of color, of ages? And how do we make them feel like bosses? That’s my biggest goal is that when you hit that runway, [that] you feel comfortable.”
Attendees take note: The requested dress code for “Flourish” will require guests to wear earth-toned colors such as browns, nudes and off-white, in order to provide a contrast to the bold and colorful designs of the runway models. For Nelson-Green, the earth-toned colors symbolize the soil, a foundation to Liznel, her colorful and vibrant brand built around empowering women.
As her big show approaches, Nelson-Green reflects back on her journey.
“I think the journey [of being a fashion designer] is hard, but it’s worth it,” she says. “If you’re passionate about it, keep going. Keep doing it. You will be seen.”
“Flourish” will be held on Thursday, April 25 at the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design. Tickets for “Flourish” by Liznel are currently on sale online. Guests are required to dress in a color palette of browns, tans, beiges or off-white to represent the theme of earth tones. Doors will open at 7 p.m. Show will start at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for other RVAFW events running from April 22 to 28 are also available online.
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