Stevie Edwards, Manner Designer Who Styled Diana Ross, Dies At 58

HYDE PARK — Manner designer Stevie Edwards has shed his fight with cancer.

Edwards’ sister, Aretha Edwards, explained the fashion designer died peacefully Sunday surrounded by cherished kinds. He’d battled lung cancer for far more than two decades. The relatives will be arranging a memorial to honor him in the coming weeks, she reported.

The Washington Park native had not too long ago introduced a crowdsourcing campaign to assist with mounting healthcare charges and residing charges soon after his most cancers diagnosis pressured him to return to Chicago from California two yrs ago. Edwards had been getting spherical-the-clock care in his Hyde Park house, and his family members had sought the public’s aid just after draining their have finances for his care.

Relevant: Read through More About Stevie Edwards’ Daily life And Career

Edwards obtained his first split in the mid-80’s when Trend Honest founder and Ebony Journal matriarch Eunice Johnson highlighted his models in a 1986 spread of the journal.

Johnson then handpicked him to design attire for her right after seeing him on a phase of the Oprah Winfrey Present in the late ’80s, becoming the young designer’s initially major consumer.

The Dunbar Vocational Academy alum also labored with Barbara Bates and Patrick Kelly, and later, opened brick and mortar boutiques in Hyde Park and Gold Coastline, and introduced his very own label, “I Luv Stevie.”

He experienced approximately 1 working day to dress Diana Ross for an impending tour following the iconic singer cold termed him.

“It was close to the time of her ‘Return To Love’ tour, and I’m driving down Lake Shore Travel when she phone calls me,” Edwards instructed Block Club in July. “At 1st I refused to think it was her. She tells me she beloved a gown I sent via just one of her people today, and that she would like me to style and design attire for the ladies on tour with her. I advised her I can do it. She says, ‘Great. I have to have 50 sketches on my desk by tomorrow early morning.’ At this stage I’m panicking since I never know what to do.”

He located a Columbia Faculty illustrator who fleshed out the sketches with minutes to spare, he claimed. When Ross’ tour stopped in Chicago, Edwards been given a individual invite to show up at.

He’d go on to dress stars like LisaRaye and Tiffany Haddish, developing a friendship with the latter after meeting her at concert in California. The comic was a single of the earliest donors to Edwards’ crowdsourcing campaign, which created all around $7,400 in donations.

When Edwards was notoriously non-public, he told Block Club that his analysis created him want to open up up.

“My family designed me know there was very little to be ashamed of. Talking about it is kind of therapeutic. So I’m all set to notify my story now,” Edwards reported very last thirty day period.

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Katheleen Knopf

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