Ohio Designer's First Runway Show Honors Mother

Andrew Shields, who describes himself as a futuristic designer who likes to explore the imagination and things that haven't happened yet, envisioned himself showing his first fashion collection in New York, but life took a few turns and shifted that vision.

During his senior year in college, Shields was working on a thesis and creating a collection with his mom.

The collection was inspired by his favorite video games.

“She was helping me with a lot of it," he said. "A good portion of it was knitwear, and she was doing a lot of the knit stuff for me.”

Valuing the time spent with his mom, things got tough.

“I wasn’t able to finish my senior thesis in school cause my mom passed away,” Shields said. His mom died after battling breast cancer for years. 

Shields worked other jobs and helped to build the brands of others until the pandemic came around. At that point, he’d been furloughed. It was then that he said something just clicked, and he turned back to sewing.