Quinton Lovelace, an alumnus of Central, was one of the top designers in Omaha Fashion Week this year. The Omaha World Herald called his designs a “crowd favorite.”

Lovelace has been interested in fashion since he was young.“Basically it started from art about middle school then I started directing it more towards fashion because I think fashion is a form of art,” said Lovelace.

As a new member of the Omaha fashion community, Lovelace was surprised by the amount of publicity he was given during the week. Quinton also discovered on his first appearance in the fashion community the large size of the Omaha fashion community. “I didn’t realize how big the fashion community really was in Omaha until this year because this is my first year doing fashion week and it’s pretty big,” said Lovelace.Quinton had concerns about standing out in such a large talent pool, but he had his mom’s name to help him along:

“Fashion week was a huge help as far as promotion goes and my mom has been a performer for about thirty years. She has a lot of friends that look forward to seeing her perform so my name got connected with hers… her friends and fans gravitated towards me, so I guess that kind of helps,” said Lovelace.

Lovelace also had help from other designers to prepare for Fashion Week. “I did work with a designer by the name of Denise Urban. She’s been my mentor throughout this process. I learned a lot from her and I would go to her and say, ‘Hey I want to create this, how can I do that?’ She would basically say to do this, this and this and then I’d go home and create… She gave me the skill, taught me the skills and knowledge on how to construct a garment properly,” he said.

For his first year at Fashion Week Lovelace created a “ready-to-work” collection of composed of seven pieces. The collection included a lot of black skirts, leggings, dresses and jackets.“The idea behind the collection was an idea of simplistic edge and so I wanted to do something edgy in a simplistic way that utilized bold colors interesting shapes and lines,” he said.

His inspiration was something that Lovelace appreciates, as it made him enthusiastic about designing this line.

“I love edgy looks. I love motorcycle jackets… I’m very black and white as far as style goes, so when I see zippers and leather and things that are very edgy, I was like, ‘How can I do that in a simplistic style?’” he said.

In a month Lovelace will be going to college. Even though he isn’t connected with Central right now, he wants to be in the future. Lovelace calls his four years at Central amazing, and he asserts that Central is the best high school in Omaha. Lovelace wants to show again next year in Omaha Fashion Week and continue to grow his skills as a designer for the rest of his life.