Today we’d like to introduce you to Caressa Brown.
Hi Caressa, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The work of (DE-FI) Global INC is inspired by the struggles that I faced in my own career as an aspiring model. Suffering from low self-esteem issues as a kid, my mom worked several jobs to put me into modeling school so that I could learn how to walk with confidence. After the first class, the instructor called me and her mother aside and offered to continue to train me free of charge because she believed that I was the only person in her class that had what it took to make it in the industry as a professional model. It was later discovered that this decision had not been approved by the modeling school’s owner who gave my mom the option to pay back the money owed or withdraw from the school, it was decided to withdraw from the school.
With newly found confidence and a new dream of becoming a model, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the bookstores at the local malls, reading fashion magazines and fashion-based books looking for model searches, studying posing, reading interviews from top models and designers, and totally immersing herself into all things fashion. Then at the age of 12, I signed my first modeling contract unfortunately shortly after, my mom was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, our already strained financial situation worsened, and my dreams were put on hold to become the caregiver for my mom, a title that 30+ years later, I still hold. Shortly after graduating from high school, I once again pursued a career as a model and was offered a contract with Click Atlanta this time I was working at General Motors Truck & Bus and was making good money while also putting myself through college and still caring for my disabled mother.
Struggling to carry the load of being a full-time first-generation college student, caring for a disabled mother, working 50+ hours a week at G.M., and chasing my dreams, I struggled to get to Atlanta to meet with my agency and once again my dream slipped away. Then at the age of 21, I was a Regional Semi-Finalist in the iconic Elite Model Look Competition and was offered a contract with Elite Chicago once again I struggled to make it to Chicago to meet with my agency; it was then that I realized that just being able to afford to pursue a dream is not enough, I also needed a strong support system, and did not have one.
In 2012 after a nearly decade-long break from fashion, I volunteered to support the startup Dayton Fashion Week and unfortunately found myself thrust into the middle controversy due to the then owners’ less than ethical and dishonest practices. The owner tried to cancel the event days before it was set to take place. Unbeknownst to me what was going on behind the scenes with the owner, I along with a few friends, scrambled to make sure the show went on, we didn’t know what had been paid for, what/who was confirmed, if tickets had been sold, etc. Fortunately, we were fairly known in the community from our community work and was able to pull some strings to ensure the show went on, which totally upset the then owner, who called me screaming and hollering saying that I didn’t have the right to make sure the show went on as planned.
When it was all said and done, I was left holding the bags as the then owner went M.I.A., refusing to answer questions or return call; I was basically thrown under the bus and left to clean up the mess that the then owner had made. Shortly after the 2012 Dayton, Fashion Week had wrapped, a few high-profile community leaders and members of the media approached me about what happened with Dayton Fashion Week. In short, I was told that they had investigated a number of claims made against the then-owner of Dayton Fashion Week, they said my name didn’t come up once when it came down to any involvement in fraudulent accusations that had been made against the owner. They went on to tell me that they saw how hard I worked to make sure the show went on and how transparent and professional I was throughout everything. They told me if I started my own fashion organization, they’d back me up and support my work.
In 2013 while being a loyal community volunteer and activist, I created the Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI), using community outreach as the base and requiring talent to volunteer in their respective communities in exchange for (DE-FI) services. That same year, I was selected by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) to get hands-on experience working behind the scenes of New York Fashion Week; I went on to serve 6 seasons with the CFDA’s program and helped other (DE-FI) talent gain access to the same opportunities. As a result, we helped eliminate financial barriers and provide the needed support system that individuals seeking careers in fashion need to find success within the industry.
And success they found! With the support provided by #DatDEFIFam, since launching, (DE-FI) model alum have gone on to walk in Fashion Weeks in Milan, New York, and Paris for designers such as Versace, Kayne West, Saint Jesus, Saral Zens, and more. They’ve appeared in campaigns for Kohl’s, Micheal Kors, ASOS, When Smoke Clears, Nike, Marc Jacobs, and more. They’ve been profiled in InStyle and Vogue Magazines and have appeared in national commercials, prime time tv, and films. (DE-FI) Designer alum have been featured in Vogue Italia, Ebony, Ellements, Shape magazines, and more. They’ve been scouted by top fashion design programs and companies, including FIDM, Kent State, UC’s DAAP, SCAAD, Ross Dress For Less, L Brands, and have been named to Forbes Under 30 Fellows list. Their work has been seen at Ulla Johnson, Calvin Klein, and on A List celebrity at the Grammy’s, the Oscars, Paris Fashion week, the Tribeca Film Festival, and on ABC’s reboot of The Wonder Years, just to name a few.
When we first launched, the goal was to serve as a springboard for Miami Valley talent to connect with other fashion weeks and opportunities across the country; however, making that connection wasn’t as easy as we had hoped, and found that those other outlets weren’t interested in sharing the spotlight. Locally, we found ourselves being dismissed, ignored, blocked, mitigated, gate-kept, and even sabotaged by the various small business owners, local government agencies, even community leaders who were uncomfortable with our rapid success, continued growth, outside-the-box operations, refusal to conform, and our in your face (DE-FI)ant attitude. So, we gathered our supplies, built our own platform, and blazed a path and legacy of our own that those who tried to stop us and/or refused to acknowledge us now duplicate or copy and paste directly from our blueprint.
For nearly a decade, the self-funded (DE-FI) Global INC has transformed into a gate-busting, door-holding, accepts you as you are and where you are kind of organization that has built a solid reputation for developing world-class talent and producing uniquely immersive fashion experiences with a style that is raw, in your face, open, honest, transparent, and (DE-FI)ant. A style that paved the way for fashion professionals to live out their dreams throughout various stages of life.
In 2016, (DE-FI) acquired Dayton Fashion Week. 2021, we became a founding member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s CFDA Connects program which gives our designers:
• Access to Runway360, branded/curated digital promotion, as well as opportunity for sales via virtual showroom.
• Education and Professional Development via webinars, panel discussions, masterclasses, one-on-one advisement with industry experts, etc.
• Sustainability/Supply Chain guidance and support, as well as access to additional CFDA Resources, Reports, and programming
• Mentoring from the CFDA and more!
I also am a voting member of the CFDA Awards Guild.
In 2022 (DE-FI) Global INC was formed becoming the parent company of the Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator and its subsidiaries.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been far from a smooth process! In year one, I was under so much pressure to prove that I don’t operate like the then-owner of Dayton Fashion Week. I never made our work about money or financial gains. In fact, our launch party was essentially one big apology/redo to those who felt that the Dayton Fashion Week owner had scammed them. We gave those participants free ads in our magazine, waived registration fees, provided ways for them to make money from our events, etc. At the end of the day, they were happy and pleased, we gave them a sold-out audience of 300+ people in comparison to barely having 15 people in attendance for Dayton Fashion Week.
The success stories from our first event immediately started rolling out. As those success stories continued to grow over the past 9 years, so have the needs of our talent. We’ve struggled finding skilled and consistent sewing talent to help our designers meet the demand for their work. We encourage our designers to have everything made in the U.S.A. however, it’s rarely cost-effective for new/emerging designers to address their target audience, market, price points, etc. AND have their designs made in the U.S.A. outside of a sweatshop.
When it comes to models who are the most preyed upon in the industry, the biggest struggle I’ve faced with them is getting them to look beyond the glitz and glamour of the industry and seeing it as the business that it is. It’s a business that is filled with rejection, predators, a lot of pressure on your outward appearance, and it’s all centered around contracts and releases. I’ve made it a point to always teach self-worth, inner beauty, watching the company that you keep and having a strong support system, self-care, knowing how to read a contract and negotiate before I even touch on how to pose or have a perfect runway walk. Sadly, this doesn’t appeal to a lot of models who are more interested in being Facebook or Instagram famous; they collect the likes but don’t have the business skills to monetize it. They get the random request from GWC (guys with cameras) but don’t know to ask what their plans are with the images. I know of models who had photographers sell their images to major companies for millions of dollars, and the models didn’t get a dime of that money because they signed releases waiving their right to receive renumeration because they just wanted to brag about “having a photoshoot” on social media. I’ve seen a lot of models sign really bad contracts on the local level that messed up major opportunities in larger markets, and sadly a lot of the regional modeling agencies take anyone who walks through their doors to cover their overhead; they don’t even develop their models, their models come to us for support.
Overall, the biggest obstacle that I face is getting our elected officials in Dayton, Montgomery County, and the Miami Valley region, in general, to see the fashion industry as the $900 Billion dollar-a-year industry that it is. The median household income in Dayton in barely over $30K a year; some of the top 10 careers in fashion start out at $45k a year and go up well into 6 figures; the majority of those careers are not in front of the camera. One of my biggest goals is to bring garment manufacturing to the Dayton region. Ohio cities like Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland have all benefited from economically from the fashion industry for decades.
In the past year alone, Columbus and Franklin County have invested over a half a million dollars into the Columbus-based fashion organizations. Sadly, the lack of funding that I’ve received from our government makes our progress much slower when it comes to having an economic impact. I’ve funded about 80% of our work from my own pocket, all of the talent that we’ve developed over the years have left the region to pursue their goals…meanwhile, while our work is viewed as entertainment locally, we are competing with cities across the Midwest who are paying $50k for fashion talent to move to their cities because they see the economic value in fashion.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about (DE-FI) Global INC?
We specialize in:
• Talent development and management
• Fashion operations and advisory
• Experience and event management
• Media production and distribution
• Creative marketing and branding
For nearly a decade, we have helped to launch the careers of over 1000 models, designers, photographers, HMUAs, writers, sewists, and more. We have helped them navigate the frequently changing fashion industry to build lasting careers and businesses.
Based in Dayton, Ohio, (DE-FI) creates, designs, and executes strategic plans for fashion careers that pave the way for transformative, innovative, memorable events and experiences with support from CFDA Connects programming making the Miami Valley a fashion capital for talent development.
We own and/or produce more than 10 signature events, from live fashion shows to community engagement and brand-building educational series that merge culture, art, music, culinary, and lifestyle.
We are a content platform specializing in development, production, marketing, and distribution of fashion-related talent and work out of the Dayton, Ohio region.
A marketing business providing experiential, impacters, influencer, and public relations expertise for fashion-based talent in Dayton but not limited to our region.
We are mostly known for our high number of success stories, our immersive and one-of-a-kind immersive experiences, and community outreach initiatives.
What sets us apart from others is for our first 7 years, we used community outreach as out foundation to help people achieve their goals in fashion. We didn’t charge for our services; in exchange, we asked people to pay it forward by investing the same amount of time that we invested in them back into their respective communities. The past two years we have shifted to making more of an economic impact and providing more opportunities and access to resources which does require talent to make financial investments into some of our services which range from $90-175 month depending on the service that you are requesting.
I’m most proud of the fact that we’ve been a safe and trusted resource for talent around the country for nearly a decade who have traveled to Dayton for legitimate opportunities to advance their careers in fashion. Even if things don’t work out in fashion many still keep in touch with us based on the business lessons that they learned from our work; I’m always honored when talent ask me to serve as a reference or to write a letter of recommendation for a job opportunity, award, or admission to school. I also love when talent comes back to mentor current talent in our incubators; I love listening to our alum teaching the industry and sharing their experiences.
I want the readers to know that if you are seriously wanting a career in fashion, we are here to help you achieve your goals. In saying that, you also have to understand that, like everything else in life, success in the fashion industry:
1) IS HARD WORK
2) REQUIRES LONG HOURS
3) NOT FUN! (Yes, it has its moments, typically after an event is over and you can finally relax)
4) IS NOT GLAMOROUS
5) IS COMPETITIVE
6) IS SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
7) A CONSTANT LEARNING EXPERIENCE
8) IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY
9) IT WILL MAKE YOU DOUBT YOURSELF
10) IT’S A BUSINESS
(DE-FI) Global INC simply provides the support system that you need to make it, help you build your team, and provide the access that you need. All of our work can be found at www.defiglobalinc.com.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
COVID-19 did force us to scale back our operations drastically; we were scheduled to launch the reboot of Dayton Fashion Week in March 2020, then the week before, we went into lockdown. We opened up the first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary fashion Co-working space, the House of (DE-FI)ance: A Fashion & Design Co-working Experience in March of 2021; when we were under restrictions, we weren’t able to do about 80% of what we wanted to do because of restrictions.
As restrictions began lifting in the fall of 2021, we began picking up momentum, and then by the Winter of 2021, our landlord sold the building that we were leasing space from. It was a disastrous experience; we went 7 months without hearing a single word from the new owners; we sent them our plans to have Dayton Fashion Week in July of this year back in January of 2022, by May, we had not received the approval from the landlord, we called, email, dropped by, left messages, etc. to no avail. Once again, we were forced to postpone the launch. We ended up packing up our stuff and leaving the space after continued issues with the space went unaddressed in regards to our day-to-day operations. The new owners of the venue finally contacted us a couple of weeks ago, almost 3 months after we idled our space, and want us to return due to “the demand for our work.”
Now with COVID-19, numbers are once again rising, and there is a lot of recession talk. We’ve essentially taken advantage of the downtime we’ve had to plan for both a recession and COVID-19/Monkeypox-related restrictires so that our services aren’t interrupted.
Pricing:
- Designer Incubator ranges from $95-175 month
- Varous workshops range from $15-50 an event
- There are no fees related to being a signed model with our agency unless you’d like your portfolio on our website and that cost about $150 a year.
- Sewing classes range from $35-150 per class depending on the class and the instructor
Contact Info:
- Website: www.defiglobalinc.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/defiglobalinc
- Facebook: Facebook.com/defiglobalinc
- Twitter: Twitter.com/defidayton
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCK3UXV9rnn6m9Q09cGzMMvw
Image Credits
John Flynn
Pete Bradow
Amy Burke
Moe Speaks