On the waterfront in Milwaukee’s trendy Historic Third Ward, a new face of fashion is emerging. Lynne R. Dixon-Speller is the Dean of Academics at the Edessa School of Fashion. Dixon-Speller will tell you she doesn’t have a job. She has a passion to let people know that fashion in Milwaukee is real. Her students have shown their designs at New York, Chicago, Kenya and Paris Fashion Weeks. Even more amazing: the fashion school has only been open for two years.
The Edessa School of Fashion offers traditional garment design along with non-traditional ways to fabricate style. From corsets to haute couture, the school provides hope for non-traditional students in Milwaukee. The youngest student is 27 years old, the oldest is 61. Opportunity is all Dixon-Speller wanted when she decided to help form, construct, and pattern this school for success.
Dixon-Speller says starting the school was the most difficult thing. She had no idea what she signed up for, but says “we are not shrinking violets. We are not running away.” The school is personal in more ways than one. The fashion school’s namesake, Edessa Meek Dixon, was Dixon-Speller’s grandmother.
As a young black woman, Edessa Meek Dixon graduated from the Tuskegee Institute in 1920. Dixon-Speller felt she needed to honor her grandmother’s bravery and academic prowess. Dixon-Speller’s grandmother taught her how to sew. “The Edessa School of Fashion,” Dixon-Speller liked the sound of it. And she felt that Milwaukee kids needed to see something named after someone like themselves.
Those Milwaukee kids now see themselves on the cutting edge of fashion. Edessa has begun to develop a reputation for having a youthful, hip vibe with a structure and style to last. Dixon-Speller remembers this piece of eternal fashion advice from her grandmother:
“Whatever it is, you don’t know after you send it out into the world where it’s going to end up, but it’s going to have your name on it, so it better be the best.” Dixon-Speller still gives her students that advice. And she should know. She’s had garments end up in the Smithsonian and the Wisconsin Museum of Art.
Those sewing lessons with grandma became the fabric of Dixon-Speller’s life.
“We have done things that the other fashion schools have never done, and they’re 50 years old,” Dixon-Speller says. “It is almost as if everything we touch is telling the community we belong here. We have the right to be here, and we are the best.”
