MANSFIELD — Ariana Grande is the most recent celebrity to don the fashion stylings of Mansfield native Todd Fisher.
Yet if it wasn’t for an injury, Fisher’s story might have played out in sports rather than clothes. The Mansfield native had his heart set on becoming a professional athlete when he was in college.
“Track was my passion,” Fisher said.
After graduating from Mansfield Senior in 2003, he attended Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, where he was part of a national championship track and field team. He later transferred to Akron University during his junior year and pulled his hamstring, making him unable to compete the rest of the season.
That unfortunate incident left Fisher questioning his future.
“At that age I thought I was going to be running for the rest of my life,” he said.
He considered what other options he had, reflecting upon his fascination with art.
“When I was in high school, I took every art class that I could and my art teachers always encouraged me to do something artistic,” he said. “I never really took it too seriously until I started to question whether or not I was going to continue to run track, so I kind of just took a leap of faith and dropped out of college and moved to New York to be a designer.”
In the summer of 2008, Fisher pursued his desire of becoming a fashion designer. He had some knowledge about the fashion industry, having studied fashion merchandising while at Akron University. Thanks to his mother, he learned to sew and alter his own clothing since he was eight.
Over the past eight years, he’s worked for different evening wear designers in New York and has experienced a firsthand look at what the fashion industry is like.
“It’s hard work,” he said. “It’s more hard work than it is glamorous.”
But hard work pays off. Fisher, now 30, started his own business at the beginning of the year and his pieces have already garnered positive attention — and not just because of the way they look.
“Everything I make has no animal products in it whatsoever,” he said. “The reason I do it is because I love animals, and I don’t think that they need to be harmed in order to make women look fabulous,” he said.
A faux fur coat that Fisher made could be seen on Ariana Grande at the Radio Disney Music Awards in Los Angeles on April 30. Fisher said he used luxury faux fur that costs $200 a yard for the coat, which took about 25 hours to make.
Fisher said he specializes in women’s evening wear and especially enjoys making catsuits (fitted jumpsuits). His most recent collection included approximately 30 different pieces and took about 2 1/2 months to complete.
“I design on a regular basis in my head, but I don’t always put it on paper,” he said.
Currently, he has various clients, including some celebrities and night-life performers. He’d like to someday sell to department stores and dress women all over the country.
In the meantime, he’s having fun being able to create.
“I love starting with nothing and creating a collection, or getting ideas from a client and coming up with something that represents who I am as a designer and who they are as a person,” he said. “It’s creating something out of nothing that I love the most.”
