Gucci awards these SCAD students as today’s fashion Changemakers

SCAD student Sydnie Hicks’ love of fashion was ironically sparked by being kept away from it.

“I went to schools with uniforms my entire life, like kindergarten until college. So whenever I wasn’t in such a strict environment, I was like, ‘Oh my God; let me just go out and play and experiment with my look,’” Hicks explained to UATL. It was in those earlier years when she decided to pursue fashion.

“Somewhere around fifth or sixth grade, there was a college fair, and they had SCAD (at the school). It was one of the first times I had ever seen anywhere that offered fashion as a degree. And so I decided then that I wanted to go to” the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Today the senior fashion student, enrolled on the Savannah campus and hailing “a little from Stonecrest, a little from Stone Mountain,” has already received recognition for a sense of fashion design extending beyond herself as the canvas.

Hicks is one of three SCAD recipients of this year’s Gucci Changemakers North America Scholarship Program. This year’s recipients attending SCAD match the total number of previous SCAD winners selected in six years.

Detroit native Courtland “Court” Walters, who is completing undergraduate studies in jewelry, and Riverdale’s Jeremiah Elias, a film and television student, are the other two recipients. The Gucci honor comes with a check as big as $20,000 for each of them.

Gucci launched the three-part program — which also includes the Impact Fund for arts and culture nonprofits and Creative Fellows for those out of college — for the United States and Canada in 2019. Its mission is to diversify the fashion industry and beyond, with scholarship funding intended to create lasting social impact in communities and the fashion industry.

“I am using a lot of the scholarship funds toward my senior collection,” Hicks shared. “I want to be as creative as I can and do as much as I can.

Hicks said she also hopes to inspire others interested in pursuing fashion through representation, as a Black woman with autism. “There’s a lot of different minority labels that I hold that I think some people think will hold them back,” she said, “and I want people to see me and see like, ‘Hey, I can do whatever I want.’”

She describes her style of fashion design as a contrast of light and dark, using sharp silhouettes, calling it “vixen energy.”

“It’s edgy, it’s in your face, It’s confident. Some might find it a little intimidating, mixing those edgy themes with softer ones (but) I love lace and leather together,” she said.

“Exploring and dissecting love is something that I do a lot in different collections or different design work that I’ve done in the past,” she expounded. “I don’t deal well with emotion or understanding different emotions, so I like to explore those things through my different creative processes.”

Her work, however, is still approachable.

“The way that I think about designing is I want it to be something that you could wear walking down the street, and it would turn heads. But it could also be something that someone’s performing in,” she said. “I want it to be crazy and fun and draw attention, but I also want it to be something that is wearable.”

Unlike Hicks, jewelry designer Court Walters, who also attends the Savannah campus, had never heard of SCAD and found out about the college from a family member.

“After high school, I was kind of figuring out what I wanted to do, and I took a visit to Atlanta to see my cousin, who was going to Georgia State. I was telling him what I wanted to do with my future, and he suggested I check out SCAD,” he recalled. “I’m glad I did because I love SCAD. It’s amazing.”

An aspiring music producer who didn’t feel drawn to fashion, film or TV when he enrolled, music initially drew Walters to the school. He became interested in jewelry in his sophomore year.

“I looked at the jewelry program as an open opportunity,” he explained. “It’s not that prominent in an average man’s life to wear jewelry. So I thought it would be cool to try to join a side of fashion that is kind of, for lack of better words, slept on. … I tried a jewelry class, and I fell in love with it.”

A longtime fan of rock music inspired by Lenny Kravitz, Jimi Hendrix and others, Walters feels he’s entering the jewelry industry at the right time, especially as a Black man.

“We were so right on the streetwear side of things, but I think we’re kind of pushing more left into trying new things — having more classy outfits on, and actually studying fashion and getting to know what pieces we’re putting on. And that’s very interesting to me, because I also see men in general just trying new things, and trying jewelry, and feeling better and more confident (with) more accessories.”

Walters doesn’t want to tether his creations exclusively to men or be boxed in by traditional gender roles. “I don’t really want to make something that only one gender can wear,” he explained. “I didn’t know this but back in the ’60s, ’70s, women weren’t really allowed to wear work pants and clothing that men are wearing. But now that it’s allowed, I just think that’s really cool because you should not be told what you can and can’t wear.”

He also likes what he’s seeing from men today. “Just how men are trying to incorporate skirts in their outfits and things like that, I’m with it. I think unisex should be pushed more in design.”

While silver is the metal Walters works with most, for his senior collection he said he draws inspiration from the Zulu tribe in South Africa, incorporating bone, furs and leather.

Walters learned much from an internship with the iconic brand Tiffany & Co in New York this summer. “Just being there and living in such a big city, alone for the first time, was something I definitely needed. I feel like I’m more responsible about certain things even though I still have a lot of work to do.”

Like his fellow Gucci Changemaker, he hopes his visibility helps create more opportunity in his community.

“It’s very hard to find Black males that are jewelry designers,” he said. “It’s not very prominent in the Black community right now to be a jewelry designer, and I hope that this can inspire younger Black men to take this route.”

As with Hicks and Walters, Jeremiah Elias said he believes being a Gucci Changemaker affirms he is using his gifts for good.

Fashion is not Elias’ direct path, but the filmmaker’s work is very much influenced by Atlanta style and dance.

“Because I grew up around a lot of, I would say, old heads, I’ve always studied old film in a sense of old Atlanta culture,” he explained. For him, that has meant “the Spike Lee or even artists like T.I.” So his style often resembles old music videos in terms of being “very fast and quick-paced but also wide-angled.”