Designer to the Stars McKinzie Chic Goes Floral For Fall 2013 Collection



Philadelphia Fashion Week is right around the corner. And you know what that means: an abundance of Philly’s fashion trendsetters flooding the famed Crane Arts Building to see what Philly’s fashion division has to offer. With 10 designers debuting on September 20th, both national and international designers will come to the main stage to debut their Fall/Winter 2013 collections. And this year’s lineup incorporates Philly’s very own, McKinzie Chic, a trendy women’s ready-to-wear line consisting of blazers, dresses, and jumpsuits.
The brand is the brainchild of South Philly native Sheri McKinzie and was launched during summer 2012. Since the launch of McKinzie Chic, Sheri’s unique pieces have been met with nothing but celebrity validations. Her pieces have been spotted on your favorite celebrities such as Basketball Wives’ Draya Michele, Fantasia Barrino, Bad Girls Club’s Milyn Jensen, and R&B Divas LA’s Michel’le. The hard-to-find textiles add to the exclusivity of McKinzie Chic, as each shopper is always sure to enter the nightclub or dinner date rocking a never-before-seen look. She reinvented what it means to wear a jumpsuit, fashioning sexy cleavage along necklines and accentuating jumpsuits with impeccable lining, making it the archetype way to accent a silhouette. McKinzie Chic reinvented “sexy” making it more chiseled, with her eclectic idea to use rose-patterned sleeves rather than baring skin in her Spring 2013 collection. But as she dives into fall, she is promenading once more into “rose-land,” but this time channeling Italian hedge maze gardens met with sleek city sophistication met with art dealer chic. Make sense?
So on September 20th, models will grace the runway at the Crane Arts Building in her new “Floral Chic Fall/Winter 2013” collection. Sheri has optimisms of gaining the attention of prospective buyers, jetsetters, and stylists. So she is fine-tuning the brand once more, this time from an upmarket angle.
“This time I went for eye-catching, timeless, elegant pieces. And I think I did just that. I’m trying to cross over with this collection and show that I am a versatile designer,” says Sheri on her drive and inventiveness behind the collection. “I want women to see this collection as their essential to a night out on the town or their plus one date to a friend’s wedding. The pieces can be worn almost anywhere.”
The innovative Fall/Winter pieces can’t be duplicated as she mixes up this collection by using roses that vary in size and creating a new trend of pairing long sleeves with three-quarter-length sleeves. She keeps it clean, crisp, and lustrous by sticking to strict color schemes of red, black, taupe, and off-whites but creates pieces of clean basic design. The unique textiles are what make the statement in this collection. She steers away from the mainstream market’s overly frequented basic prints and busts the seams with rare stretch materials. With only days away until her Philadelphia Fashion Week premiere, Sheri is eager for the launch of her cutting-edge collection.
“I want people to look at this collection and think ‘Hey I can see Kim Kardashian or Angela Simmons or Rihanna in this’,” she confesses. “I’m taking it there.”
It is safe to say that the new McKinzie Chic collection is a highly awaited one that you’ll want to be the first to see. Stay tuned on what’s next for the McKinzie Chic brand by checking out www.mckinziechic.com or following on Instagram and Twitter @mckinziechic.
-Savannah Britt