Harper chats with Victoria Elizabeth of Backstage Pass about the unique origins of her design career, her most memorable runway moments, and also, how she overcame her wildly unusual, nearly debilitating disease (she is allergic to herself) to find success in the fashion industry.
This is the FCB podcast Network. This is Fascist Fast. Hi everyone, and welcome into another episode of Backstage Pass. It's your host here, Victoria Elizabeth and I am here with such an exciting guest. Today, we have miss Nicki Harper. She is the CEO and designer of Harper and Enigma Creations. Nicki, how are you today? I'm doing really good. Actually, it's been a really great weekend. Wonderful great. Well, I'm so glad to hear that you had a great weekend and you actually we just love working with you. So a little bit of info for our listeners. Nicki is a very talented designer, creative. She does headdresses, she does custom embroidered pieces, and Vicky was headlining at our spring showcase that we did in Tennessee. She did an amazing job. Not only did she create a stunning collection, but she won our overall design winner. So, Nikki, tell us a little bit. When you heard your name announce, what was going through your head? I was a disbelief. Actually, I was sitting there just kind of twiling in my thumbs to calm myself in general, because it's gonna be like broken mirror. One of the others because I loved everybody's lines. Everybody that showed up always has amazing pieces, and so I was literally getting ready to cheer on my fellow designers that I was really excited and. Happy for, and then I heard my name and I was like, oh, that's not okay, all right, I love it. And that's one thing that is so great about you. You're very humble. You know, you create this incredible art, but you are very unassuming. You're very humble about it. Take us back to the start. I mean your pieces. When you look at your pieces, the freed to callo type floral addresses, the skull pieces that you do, it seems like all these pieces have a specific story or inspiration. So what inspired you to get started with all of this? So I was actually working on a second master's program and I was becoming depressed, which then led me to start the shop, which then led me into art. And when I started the shop, I wanted to be able to do a bunch of different things because part of my ADHD I get very very distracted easily, So it's very nice to have multiple different tasks. And I always wanted to challenge myself. I don't believe something's worth doing if it's not got a challenge to it sometimes, and so carving became something that was challenging to me, and I loved it because my papa actually used to carve. He would sit and whittle, and so did his father, and so it's kind of where I took. The inspiration for it. And I wanted to give the animal skulls. There's a lot of. Roadkill, especially when you read motorcycles, you see a lot of the roadkill. And I wanted to do a way to honor animals. That have passed. And so that is why I actually repurpose actual animals skulls. All the designs. That is so interesting that that I was wondering where those came from. And yeah, indeed, what a great way to honor them. So, Nikki, you are seen at a lot of these events, you know, most if not all of them, walking the runway as a model for other labels, and then also dressing models as a designer, coordinating your own presentation. It's a lot of work. It's a lot to balance. How do you balance all of that. I am very overstimulated usually by the end of a show, especially if I'm doing both. However, I have learned now that I've done this a few times, where I like to model and design at the same time, that if I have all of my designs prepared prior and the only thing I have to do is kind of like what I did at your show, and I just have to set up and get the models ready, it makes it so much easier. It also helps if the production that I'm working with is a production house that cares about the designer and the models, because I've noticed that when it's a production house that puts value into the. Models and not just a quantity of models, it makes a. Difference in how the show goes and how I in the end am at the end of the day. Of course, the overall you know, the overall feeling and the care that's put into the production that does matter quite a bit. And Nikki, one. Of the things that is so evident about you is that you do care about your models, and you have so many models that you mentor a variety of models from maybe special needs to you know, the models that maybe they don't fit that mainstream mold, but there's something so unique about them. So how did you get to the point of mentoring so many models and kind of taking them under your wing like you do. Honestly, it just happened. I have always been that person that has liked helping people. I've always loved to teach. Even when I was really little in the hospitals, I always was the kid that wanted to be doing art with the other kids in the playroom while we were sick. And so now where I teach the kids in my hometown through the art Council, and I volunteer myself with a bunch of different programs, it's just kind of second nature. I always wanted to make a difference, honestly in those that grew up kind of similar to how I did in the hospitals, because I know that when I grew up, you didn't see models or people that looked like me in the industry. Really you didn't see those that were different. But now it's starting to become something and I think that's what strives me more to it, because I want them to have opportunities that maybe I didn't even have. Absolutely, and that's such a beautiful thing. It shows with the models that you mentor the ones that you work with. Now, speaking of your story, I know some people that have maybe watched some other podcasts, might be familiar with your story. But you have a really remarkable story of recovery. I mean, you're you're a warrior doing all these amazing things. But take us back to that, you know, being a sick kid in the hospital. What happened and how did you overcome that? So I was born with a really rare autoimmune disorder. It's called aps one or aphisid, and essentially we build antibodies to parts of ourselves. I'm allergic to myself, to my blood, to my skin, to my hair. They even say, with the ones of us that have like episcrites, we're allergic to our irises of our eyes. And with that it's all I've ever known. Actually. But my parents were both medicals, so they taught me and they mentored me and taught me advocacy, and that taught me how to stand up for myself. They taught me how to actually speak like the other medical professionals so that. When they weren't around. I could advocate for myself and in turn, it made me really strong. And then where they made me the fighter. Who was resilient in a hospital. Then my grandparents, Mamma and papal. They made me. The person that's the empathetic, artistic, social butterfly that I have. That's truly incredible. So how do you navigate? I mean, like you said, that's something extremely rare. I have not heard of that, and I think it's so wonderful that you use the platforms that you have to spread awareness. What does a day in the life of someone who is quite literally allergic to themselves? What does that look like for you? So we take meds a good portion. I was taking quite a bit of meds. Some of us have taken anywhere from a few pills a day to eighty two pills a day. When I was twelve, I was on eighty two pills a day. Then there's some of us that have to do shots. So, for instance, they've come up with new synthetic parathyroid hormone injections for those of us that are parathyroids have already been destroyed by the disease, and with that we have to do our own shots. We have to learn all that a good portion of us are diabetics, so we have to learn how to do insulin if we are that way, or we. Have to do special diets. Some of us have feeding tubes. For instance, I have ports in my chest, and with the port in your chest, you have to be careful if you do certain things, especially if there's a harness involved. So there's just day to day things you have to be mindful of. If you forget your medications, you're going to notice it. So you have to be almost more hyper aware than the average person is. Of course, now you use your platforms to spread awareness. You know about this disease and about how you have overcome, and you're really a trailblazer of sorts with with what you do. You know, what you. Create and the art and the type of models that you mentor so you know, let's look down the road a few years from now, where do you hope to be. What do you hope to see happening in your life as a model, as an artist, as a mentor creator. As a model. I would honestly just love to continue working with a good portion of the productions I work with already, because I like to build bonds with the people that I work with in general. But I would also like to eventually as a model get paid for a few of the gigs I do in that regard. I don't at this point where I call myself a nub to the industry, even though a lot of my friends are like, no, you have too many things going for you to be a new Boman. No, but I am a new if there's still so much to learn, and with that, I would love to be able to be on some big run. Wise, I would love to go to Japan model in Tokyo. That's been a dream of mine. I would like to design, honestly, that is my goal is to get to be a designer in Tokyo at some point, and I would love to be able to, honestly within the shop, be able to offer my full accessible stability line with a line of models that are all disabled models such as myself. And just like Airy was down. In Tennessee, absolutely yes, and we're going to be hearing from Airy soon. She is a trailblazing model. She has down syndrome and is really making waves. So, Nikki, I really love what you're doing with your line, with your mentorship, just with your advocacy and your platform. Now if we want to one follow you to just keep in touch with things that you have going on, things that are upcoming, and then also if we want to shop your collection, how do we do that? So my actual shop has a full website. It is www dot Harper and Enigma dot com and it has access to all of our links, how to contact us, has some of the photos of our different styles of art, since we do so many different styles of arts. Because we're a full fabrication shop. So we are. Getting ready to actually add the clothing aspect to the actual website. So once that has added, people will be able to browse and whatever they see. If it's not available and I guess it's already sold, then I can also make them custom fits from there. But they can also follow me my Instagram is probably the easiest way to reach me on socials, which is eku bear hunter all one word and I really did hunt a bear for people to. Ask I was okay. I was wondering about that. I didn't know if it was like the the b Yorc song a hunter if it. Was okay, I really did. Oh wow, that is what that is very interesting. Well, NICKI, We're going to be posting all of these links so you can keep abreast of the amazing things that this amazing person has going on. You can shop the collection as well. You definitely want to check out all of these pieces. And Nikki, thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to speak with us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, it's been an honor all right. And thank you all as always for listening to Backstage Pass. We will talk to you soon. Bye. 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