Fashion designer Julie Maeseelewill be participating in the Haute Pink Fashion Show, an annual fundraising event to benefit the Forge Breast Cancer Survivor Center on Thurs., Oct. 17, at the Red Mountain Theatre Arts campus. The event features 10 local women impacted by breast cancer modeling customized apparel created for them by 10 local designers.
By June Mathews
Ten years ago, Julie Maeseele learned she and her family would be moving from their home in Belgium to New York.
At the time, she was working with a nonprofit organization on a social textile design project. She was also training to become a seamstress and beginning to seriously consider a career in fashion design. So, the idea of living in one of the fashion capitals of the world was not unappealing.
“I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, fabulous. Let’s do it,’” Maeseele recently told Carrie Rollwagen on The Localist podcast.
Then the location changed. Instead of New York, the family would be heading to a place Julie had never heard of before: Birmingham, Alabama.
Disappointed, Maeseele was nevertheless looking forward to moving to the States, so she began researching the city she would soon call home. She googled “Birmingham fashion” and discovered the website for Birmingham Fashion Week, and she learned the event included an Emerging Designer competition.
Flash forward to 2016: Maeseele, then a resident of Cahaba Heights for a couple of years, entered that competition and won. In a relatively short amount of time, she had made her mark in the local fashion world, and her attachment to the community was growing. She felt the unexpected switch from New York to Birmingham was meant to be and had truly worked out for the best.
“This is an amazing community,” she said. “Everybody knows everybody, and people are super-supportive and humble versus where I’m from or in New York, where people are more pretentious. But there’s none of that here.”
Because Maeseele cares about her adopted hometown and its people, she feels compelled to contribute to the life of the community through involvement as an individual and a businesswoman. Thus, she has taught workshops in hand embroidery, upcycling and sustainable fashion in places such as the gallery space at Pizitz and O’Neal Public Library and for the Youth Serve leadership organization.
Maeseele has also volunteered for UAB Arts in Medicine and participates in makers markets in Birmingham and Nashville. And she occasionally serves as a panelist for arts-related discussions at church or community gatherings.
“Working as an artist can be isolating,” she said, “but I want to be part of my community, share my skills and glorify God with my work.”
One way Maeseele is fulfilling those goals is through the Haute Pink Fashion Show, an annual fundraising event to benefit the Forge Breast Cancer Survivor Center. Set for Oct. 17 at the Red Mountain Theatre Arts campus, the show will spotlight the 1 in 8 women and 1 in 1,000 men in Alabama diagnosed with breast cancer.
Haute Pink will feature 10 local women impacted by breast cancer modeling customized apparel created for them by 10 local designers.
“I am one of the designers,” said Maeseele. “Forge reached out to me for their first Haute Pink event in 2021, and I have been participating since then, with the exception of last year’s edition. It’s an exciting way to be part of a fundraiser.”
Haute Pink, Maeseele said, inspires, honors and remembers everyone affected by breast cancer. Funds raised during the show will benefit Forge’s mission of improving the quality of life for Alabama breast cancer patients, survivors, their caregivers and loved ones.
An Artist First
Even as Maeseele becomes known for fashion design, she considers herself first an artist who happens to love clothing.
“I was always intrigued by making art, but actually having art that you can do something with, like, for example, wear, makes it more interesting,” she said.
She works out of a converted three-car garage that she had specially framed to serve as the space where she creates clothing from scratch. Every garment is hand-cut and machine-sewn using single-needle fine tailoring and is built to last.
Maeseele achieves her signature style by mixing traditional techniques with a contemporary attitude, using recycled materials and surplus textiles as her building blocks.
“I’m not a tailor,” she said. “Sometimes people confuse me with that. I don’t do prom dresses. It’s just not my vibe.”
For more information, visit juliemaeseele.com or @juliemaeseele on Instagram.
English (US)