A Passion For Fashion

Baseball camp, Bible camp, Boy Scout camp, there are a lot of ways for kids to keep busy over the summer. Now you can add Fashion Design Camp to the list.

A successful designer and Sioux Falls native has opened a school to teach her craft to the next generation.

Sixteen-year-old Carissa Johnson has spent her summer sketching, cutting and sewing and coming up with some innovative new fashion designs.

"My favorite was the shoe, designing the shoe. I love shoes, who doesn't love shoes and it was like perfect for me. And I loved designing the bag and having a finished product is so great because I can actually use and like, hey I made this," Fashion Design student Carissa Johnson said.

Johnson and a handful of young women are learning from successful designer Anita Kealey who among other things has spent more than 25 years creating pageant gowns and commercial interior designs.

"Anita helps you with whatever you need and she's so excited by what you design she wants to help you out and pick the right fabrics for it and get it all completed," Johnson said.

Kealey came up with the idea to start the Institute of Design and Technology of South Dakota after speaking at area schools on career days.

"All these young girls were interested in fashion design, partly because of the "Devil Wears Prada;” partly because of "Project Runway." So they were all interested," Kealey said.

But Kealey found one problem:

"I'd ask the kids, 'How many of you know how to sew?' Nobody knew how to sew anymore," Kealey said.

So Kealey wanted her program to be all-encompassing and came up with "Project: Design Boot Camp."

"It's an exploratory summer program, just like students might go to debate camp, music camp, and dance camp. They can come for a week and see if they like it. They are going to find out the pros and cons of fashion and find out they need to sew, they need to draw. They need to be up on their math. There are a lot of technical skills. At the end of the week they either realize no this is not cut out for me, or yes this is what I want to do," Kealey said.

14-year-old Alaina Bertsch is making the trip from Mitchell everyday to attend the classes.

"You get to design things. You get to use paint and you use your own creativity. You don't have someone telling you how to do it, they just help you. It's really a blast," Fashion Design Student Alaina Bertsch said.

"She really loves it. That's the thing I like about it. It's something in the summer that's off the beaten path of some of the things she does in the school; yet it's an education type of situation and I like that too," Alaina's mother Karen Bertsch said.

While the fashion design boot camp is mostly for kids in junior high and high school student the school will also be offering a certificate in fashion design technology in the fall for those ready to launch their careers.

"They're going to learn a lot more about entrepreneurialism and marketing, even designing a store; all the way through a start-up company," Kealey said.

Johnson, who's been creating her own outfits since middle school, says this summer program is helping her embark on her life-long dream.

"I want to be a fashion designer maybe in New York or Paris: the dream. I'm just trying to figure out school and college to pursue this dream I have," Johnson said.

"It's given her a starting point where she could actually have a business in this; could actually follow through and create something in her Carissa Rae designs she's created herself. And I think it gave her confidence," Joy Johnson, Carissa's mom said.

And while these young women are benefiting from all of Kealey's expertise, they continue to amaze this experienced designer.

"I really was afraid there would be a lot of copycat out of what they saw in this month's fashion magazine. They have thought so out of the box. I provide all the tools, materials, try to help them research. I'm totally amazed with what they've been able to do with that," Kealey said.

"It's really a great learning experience," Bertsch said.

The Project: Design Boot Camp runs about $700 per week. Next year Kealey plans on expanding the program to include 4th-6th graders.

As seen on keloland.com