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Nurturing Nashville's Creative Talent

The Nashville Fashion Forward Fund Is Inspiring The City’s Next Generation Of Fashion Influencers

At its core, Nashville is a creative community. Creatives are the source of the city’s energy. They are its beacon to the rest of the world.

That creative spirit now extends to the fashion industry. Over the last quarter century, Nashville has taken a position alongside the world’s leading fashion centers. From design and manufacturing, to corporate and retail and from trade shows to education, if it’s happening in fashion, it’s happening in Nashville. “Everyone wants a piece of the Nashville fabric,” says Marcia Masulla, a communications strategist, brand builder and the co-founder and managing director of Nashville Fashion Week. “The key is to balance all this growth by offering viable resources and opportunities for Nashville’s talent pool of designers, stylists, retailers, models, hair and makeup artists, and more. “We need to continue to nurture the fashion community and economy that is homegrown and in our own backyard.”

Masulla grew up in St. Louis where she remembers “being a precocious little girl” who started sketching and styling her own dolls and requested a subscription to Vogue when she was eight years old. She studied Fashion History and Business at Parsons School of Design – The New School in New York City. Since then, she’s been a stylist, fashion writer, organized closets, owned her own namesake boutique, managed a vintage/upcycled store, produced fashion shows and consulted and produced events for fashion
brands.

She moved to Nashville in 2008 where she found the local fashion community to be warm and welcoming. She became involved, made connections and eventually pioneered Nashville Fashion Week (NFW), along with Connie Cathcart-Richardson and Mclaine Richardson. 

NFW debuted in 2011 with a city-wide celebration of Nashville’s thriving fashion and retail community and its vast array of creative talent. Perhaps as a way of reciprocating for the way she was embraced by the local fashion community, Masulla and the volunteer-led organization introduced the Nashville Fashion Forward Fund (NFFF). As part of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (CFMT), the NFFF is an endowed fund that supports the next generation of fashion industry professionals with ties to Middle
Tennessee.

The annual award is a financial grant intended for experiential professional development opportunities. Applications are accepted each year with the recipient selected “by a committee of the Community Foundation board, based on pre-established criteria inspired by the Council of Fashion Designers (CFDA)/VOGUE Fashion Fund to advance the career of select local talent,” says Masulla.
“Applicants must first meet the criteria of having Middle Tennessee ties and then submit an outline of their brand and plan of how they intend to utilize the funds. With the NFS team being so connected to the community, we chose to have a panel of judges selected by the (CFMT) review the entries and select the recipient each year.” Masulla notes that, to avoid conflicts, NFFF members are not privy to the identities of those who serve on the selection committee as it is managed by the CFMT.

In July, Clarksville native and TSU graduate Rhea Daniels became the 12th Nashville Fashion Forward Fund recipient. Daniels is an entrepreneur who has worked for Nike in Portland, Oregon. Currently, she’s the founder and creative director for Papierdoll Factory, an online accessories boutique dedicated to blending avant-garde resort wear with cultural consciousness.

Daniels is from a military family and she plans to use her grant to take a class where she can learn how to obtain government contracts that will enable her to place her products in stores on military bases across the globe. “I think this award is a catapult to the stratosphere,” says Daniels. “It’s giving me an opportunity to propel my brand forward and introducing me to people who can make that happen. Anthony Bourdain traveled the world and talked about food and the culture and the people behind it. Papierdoll does the same thing through creativity and fashion. Accessories are important to me because it’s how you make an outfit your own. I can tell you the story behind the accessory. When you can tell someone how an item is dyed and why they use that fabric, it sparks interest in other cultures. It’s a conversation starter and a way to bring people together.”

Daniels’ relationship with Nashville Fashion Week goes back several years. “We first met Rhea when she applied to be a vendor at one of our outdoor marketplaces,” says Masulla. “I can still recall her infectious energy and professional acumen when she showed up. I just had to scoop up one of her clutches for my personal closet. Over time, Rhea kept in touch and made the leap to apply for the NFFF. I’m so thrilled that she did. She is the epitome of all the good things that anyone would want to cheer. She’s a hardworking self-starter who is both kind and intelligent. She also happens to have a keen eye for both style and business opportunities.”

NashvilleFashionWeek.com

PapierDollFactory.com