Breaking Out of the Boston Uniform: Boston Fashion Week’s Fierce Styles Menswear Show

Fashion in Boston is… almost invisible. From West Roxbury to East Boston, all that the eye can see is a crowd of borderline business casual black-blue-beige or Red Sox and Celtics gear—pretty standard Boston uniforms if you want to blend in. However, across from TD Garden inside the bustling West End Museum, something different brews.

On Sunday, October 13, Boston Fashion Week kicked off with the Fierce Styles Menswear Fashion Show inside the West End Museum. Featuring five different clothing designers, the show was dedicated towards showcasing street-style menswear on both male and female models on the runway.

“No one’s done–in Boston–just men, and you see this–they’re great,” said Cheryl Jean, the founder of Fierce Styles and host of the fashion show. “I think one of the biggest things [was] a lot of people saying there weren’t enough designers, but there was–there’s enough designers for menswear, so that’s why I decided to do it.”

Jean has been running Fierce Styles brand fashion shows for 16 years now, but while she has worked Boston Fashion Week events before, this is the first year Jean’s own brand, Fierce Styles, has held a show for the event.

The labels featured in this show were Chance by Chances, Prophet Envoy, Fashion Trend Class, Viezoe Lifestyle, and Ty Scott Lab, all of which are Boston-based, primarily streetwear brands. Despite each brand making clothes under the explicit theme of menswear, each designers’ own unique creativity made all five parts of the show feel distinct and exciting from the rest.

Chance by Chances

As the first designer shown on the runway that evening, Chance by Chances set the tone of the evening with colorful acid-washed hoodies, vibrantly painted wide legged jeans, and uniquely customized black jackets. While the designer showed several instances of both male and female models wearing the same style of clothing, no two pieces were exactly alike.

“I try to showcase individuality and creativity,” said Aezy, the creator of Chance by Chances. “I feel like right now, everybody’s kind of imitating someone else and not being [their] true selves. So, I make one-of-one pieces so people stand out.”

As of right now, Chance by Chance is a partially online, partially physical brand that both consults with people to create custom pieces tailored to their personal style and sells their own large batches designs. For custom pieces, Aezy typically sits down and talks with each of his clients about their favorite music, color, and other topics in order to then incorporate each person’s individuality into the clothing item he creates for them.

“I feel like Boston has the potential, but people just have to–like I said, I’m just really striving for people to be themselves more,” said Aezy. “You see a lot of imitation outfits nowadays, and it’s like…I feel like people need to be true to themselves, their own style.”

Viezoe Lifestyle

Walking the show after Chance by Chances, Viezoe Lifestyle featured an affinity for bold, vividly colored patterns. Whether it was a swimsuit, handbag, or track pants, nearly every model on the runway wore a piece featuring Viezoe Lifestyle’s signature geometric, almost houndstooth-y pattern which seemed to feature the letters “V” and “s.”

“I also do paintings, and my paintings are kind of abstract. I think the collection is just like the paint,” said Citi, founder of Viezoe Lifestyle. “I think most of my collections have been really colorful lately. It’s a mix. Some are really colorful, and then I have some collections where all [the] main colors–it’s black and white.”

As a young child, Citi was always drawn to art. He had been drawing since he was a kid and continued this passion when he moved to the US from Haiti at age 13. After arriving in the states, Citi began designing tattoos for people, but by demand from those around him, he later started putting his designs on clothing pieces.

Since then, Citi’s designs have been featured in several previous fashion shows, which has led him to meet Jean and participate in the Fierce Styles Menswear Fashion Show this Fashion Week.

“In fashion, I love the different-ness. There’s so [many] different people doing different stuff,” said Citi. “I don’t like when everybody just keeps doing the same stuff.”

Fashion Trend Class

After a brief intermission, Fashion Trend Class took to the runway. Its designs featured a style of menswear that differed distinctly from those of Chance by Chances and Viezoe Lifestyle. Rather than the more oversized and highly patterned pieces of before, FTC opted to use more fitted shapes and simpler color patterns for a smoother, more refined look.

FTC is Cheryl Jean’s own styling brand. Rather than designing and customizing the clothing pieces herself, her artistry is more so shown in putting just the right combination of pieces onto the models themselves.

“Yes, designers cut and sew. Yes, they have that aesthetic, but it’s good to really see how to put looks together,” stated Jean. “So that’s what we do at Fashion Trend Class.”

In addition to both hosting and running the show, Jean also launched a new line of clothing with Fashion Trend Class at the show on Sunday. The “FTC Signature Line,” as shown on the women modeling on runway, featured sharply cut coats and top layers as well as heavy chain hardwear.

Jean described this new line of clothing as “trendy, wearable, and with class.”

Ty Scott Lab

After another brief pause in the show to grab refreshments and change seating arrangements, Ty Scott Lab arrived on the runway with bold experimentation regarding every aspect of his designs. Some models walked the catwalk with colorful long coats and robes hanging from their shoulders. Others wore almost camo-colored pieces cut in a casual style. One model in particular was styled in a glittering, gilded coat cut to look like the wings of a bird.

“My upbringing is Native American, and so I try to incorporate…elements of my culture in street style,” said Ty Scott, founder of Ty Scott Lab. “I try to bring that together. I’m a fashion artist, so it’s wearable street art.”

All across Ty Scott Lab’s social media presence, there are videos of Scott creating new art pieces from old, sometimes worn out clothes. In fact, all the pieces he brought for the Fierce Styles show on Sunday were upcycled pieces in an effort to be more sustainable, which is an issue that Scott is particularly concerned with. Both in person and online, he is a vocal critic of the fashion industry’s harmful impact on the environment.

“Fashion is polluted right now, and there’s a lot of fast fashion going on and people are just throwing away stuff that can really be recycled and upcycled, really,” said Scott. “So that’s what I’m learning to do.”

Prophet Envoy

Rounding out the end of the Fierce Styles Menswear Fashion Show was the brand Prophet Envoy. More than any other designer at the show, Prophet Envoy incorporated text and images onto the designs of his sweaters and outerwear.

“I just experiment, and I just want to create something where it’s like, somebody’s going to stop you, and that’s what I call a statement piece,” said Teesdale, “because it’s like ‘oh, what made you wear it? Where’d you get it from?’”

What immediately draws viewers into Prophet Envoy’s pieces are its uses of faces in its work. Both Malcom X and Maya Angelou were featured on the brand’s clothes at the show on Sunday, but beyond that, the label has also put Martin Luther King Jr., Shirley Chisholm, Nelson Mandela, and Rosa Parks in their other works. With the imagery of these powerful figures paired with the brand’s own positive messages featured in text on their clothing, Teesdale and his company emphasize a theme of resilience and optimism to their audience.

“I just want everything that I have here–it emulates peace. That’s been my whole thing, being a messenger of good news, being a messenger of peace,” said Rhesa Teesdale, CEO of Prophet Envoy. “That’s what propelled the brand into where it is, so I’m going to continue to emulate that [however] long I can.”

To close out the event, Jean invited both her sons, her team, and all of the designers on stage to thank them and the wider audience for their support of the show. Both Devon Viola, Miss World America Massachusetts for 2024, and Prajjé O. Jean Baptiste, participant of the hit Bravo show Project Runway, sat front row in the audience and were given special shoutouts for attending.

Out in the lobby, there was a buzz in the air as people mingled and discussed with each other their thoughts on the outfits featured in the show as they were leaving. While there were no other events quite like it for the rest of Boston Fashion Week, the Fierce Styles Menswear Fashion Show had sparked excitement for the upcoming schedule of runway shows and future Boston fashion events.

“It’s always ‘Boston never has fashion, Boston never has fashion!’” said Jean, prior to the show. “We do have fashion. We have great fashion.”