Ambar Ramirez
Words & photos by Ambar Ramirez
At noon on a Tuesday — the first sunny day after weeks of rain and gloomy skies — the warm sunlight streaming down felt like a sign of what was to come. As I walked into CoLab Cafe, I was about to meet someone whose presence was just as bright: Kameren Lott, curator and owner of the Jacksonville Fashion Experience.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Lott always had an affinity for the arts. Whether it was photography or drawing, Lott gave his all to it and did so passionately. And when Lott was signed to a commercial modeling agency and got moved to Jacksonville by his agency, he packed up his life and dreams in Ohio and brought them to our bold city. In just two years of living here, Lott has done more for the local fashion scene than I’ve seen anyone else do within the last five years of living here.
From a young age, Lott connected with fashion. Despite growing up, in his own words, low-income and in a big city, Lott didn’t let his economic background define him. Fashion is an avenue for expression after all and all Lott wanted to do was express himself.
“That’s when I really got into thrifting. Thrifting is like one of my favorite things to do. It’s endless. It’s crazy what you can find at the thrift store,” Lott expressed. “And I guess that’s kind of where it all started. And I like fashion, it brims very brightly. I still find myself at the thrift store looking at what I can alter or cut or upcycle and things of that sort.”
One thing to know about Lott is that he knows how to break through the noise of bustling cities. And within an industry that’s constantly shifting and all about “the next best thing,” he knows how to keep up. But what about Lott is defining his success in the fashion scene here in Jacksonville? Is it his willingness to accept and surpass any challenge that comes his way or is it pure luck?
“I kind of just saw the lack of a fashion community here, and I just wondered what could happen if I tried to do a show here in Jacksonville. What if we actually just did a collaborative fashion show?” Lott shared. “And so I started working on that. I’m a person that when something comes along, I have to see it through whether it’s good or bad. I’ve got to give it a shot. So I was like, How can I implement this? So I partnered with CoLab, and we did our first show here. It was absolutely amazing.It was over 200 people in a room. It was very electrifying energy and just to see that you can do it, it just made me super proud because again, I’m super shy and awkward, so it’s hard for me to kind of start the fire. So when the fire started and I saw the tickets coming in, everyone was just like reposting and reaching out and just giving their congrats. I was like, man, this thing can actually blow up.”
Credit’s due where credit is due and much of the success of the Jacksonville Fashion Experience is a result of Lott’s passion to bring an elevated fashion scene to Jacksonville. But it is also due to the fact that the Jacksonville Fashion Experience isn’t your run of the mill fashion show. Lott makes sure of it.
“So at first, my show was going to be called the Jacksonville Fashion Runway, but I like the experience because everyone gets a different experience whether they’re in a room or whether they’re in the crowd, whether they’re behind the scenes, whether they’re a photographer, everyone gets a different experience of the night. And so that’s why I really wanted it to be based around the experience and not just the fashion, because everyone will have a different experience. So I think the experience is almost like the best part because I think people are sometimes so focused on what they have to do, they forget to really reel into the experience,” Lott said. “So it’s not just so fashion, fashion, go, go, runway, runway. It’s art. And fashion is very expansive, like there’s musical art, there’s performance art, which is what we want to show.”
The Jacksonville Fashion Experience held its first show back in February, and since then, opportunities have been endless—much like Lott’s early days at the thrift store. They’ve collaborated with Yelp, hosted another show at Casa Marina, and built strong connections with numerous local businesses. But from the start, Lott’s focus was clear: he wanted to create opportunities for models.
When Lott began his modeling career, he often felt out of place. In an industry where the ideal is tall, skinny, and nearly perfect, finding his footing was a challenge. That’s why the Jacksonville Fashion Experience also offers a fashion camp.
“So a lot of people don’t know, but we actually do camps as well. It is like small little, kind of a elective where we kind of dig a little bit deeper into what it is like, be a model and we focus on runway, editorial and commercial. So our camps do really well as well. And that’s fun. I think the community has been like really, really supportive, and I think that’s the reason why we’ve been blown up in the sense like every day I get like a message of like someone saying, ‘how can I be part of that, going to be part of this?’” Lott expressed. “And it just kind of warms my heart because it’s like we are I, I don’t like try, I don’t try to be different. Like, I want to be different, that I don’t want to be like your average just run of the mill show that gets put on every couple of months and then that’s it. Like, I want people to constantly have access to us, which is why we have the fashion camp as well, to kind of just like if you want to be a model, like come to the camp and we’ll tell you what we know.We’ll share our experience, our knowledge. We’ll work on you one on one and share what we know, and prayerfully, it’ll help you grow more confident as a model.”
In Lott’s book, a model is someone who is a role model. There are no other defining factors or body types one has to fit into. It’s a breath of fresh air in an industry that’s often toxic.
“There’s no norms to be in a model. Like there’s no perfect weight class, there’s no perfect skin tone, there’s no less amount or more amount of tattoos. I hate that that’s kind of the culture of like modern-day models, right? Is like they have to be bare bone and no piercings. That’s boring,” Lott said. “So yeah, no, I don’t, I don’t have those harsh borders for my show. I just say, Hey, you show up, your professional, your passionate, you can work with the team. Then you are a model, period.”
But Lott couldn’t have created the Jacksonville Fashion Experience without the help of, well, Jacksonville. The Fashion Experience at its core is a collaborative project that consists of models, designers and local clothing businesses, but it also collaborates with the community.
“Jacksonville is … we’re like very low-key. But when we pop, we pop in. There’s so many successful businesses here. So I feel like you can start anything here and it can grow because we have such a community here that supports positivity,” Lott expressed. “I mean, it’s private, it’s flat, but it’s a big city with a lot of opportunities.”
And Lott wants to keep the opportunities flowing. He hopes that through the Jacksonville Fashion Experience, he can continue to foster this platform that will lift anybody interested in the fashion industry up. Whether it’s helping models get signed or helping designers see their clothes on billboards, Lott is all about bettering those around him.
“I try to always be open and exude love and just to put myself out there very positively, and I just always pray like that comes back to me and to the people I work with,” Lott said.
To follow along the Jacksonville Fashion Experience’s growth and for updates on upcoming shows, check out @jaxfashionexp.
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