MARC S WHITE
Fashion Designer & Visual Artist
Marc S. White has been hailed as a Conscientious Designer. He allows his spirituality, love for the planet, its global cultures and customs to guide his life and design aesthetics.
In the early part of his career, Marc was quoted as saying, “If given the opportunity I would visit impoverished areas and neighborhoods throughout the world to distribute quality clothing to people who are in need,” and he has dedicated his life to doing just that. By designing for well-known clients and other lovers of high fashion couture, White has been able to take what is earned and the materials that are left to create for those in need.
Viewed by many of his colleagues as a contemporary Renaissance man, Marc sees fashion as the ultimate form of expression. “We choose clothes that represent our personalities, our moods, the times we live in, our ambitions and our desires,” he says. Consequently, he holds a philosophical vision of “traditional clothing” that translates into completely modern sartorially pleasing and covetable wear. He uses the vitality and art of the urban community and infuses it with a global vibe for modern life and every day wear.
Marc was the first African-American admitted to the newly formed Kent State University School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, which opened in 1983. After graduating, he interned at The Russell Trusso Fashion House in Cleveland Ohio in 1986-87 and honed his illustrative skills studying Watercolor Theory with Artist Clarence Perkins of The American Watercolor Society. He also was the personal fashion designer and part-time stylist for Jazz Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis between 1985 and 1989.
Over the span of his 20-plus year career, he has worked constantly to create clothing for such stars as Oprah Winfrey, Whitney Houston, Spike Lee, The Neville Brothers, Sonya Robinson, Dr. Bertice Berry, Winnie Mandela, Mutabaruka and a host of other dignitaries, artists, personalities and beautiful people throughout the world.
Living abroad between 1990 and 2010, Marc has had the opportunity to reside in West Africa, Israel and Europe. Marc’s pilgrimage across the globe and through life is the inspiration for his designs.
A lifelong love affair with Eastern cultural elegance spawned a collaborative in 1992 with India’s famous fashion designer to the stars, Xerxes Bhathena, producing a line of clothes that were sought after across the globe.
His design style epitomizes a laid-back global luxury accomplished by combining organic fabrics, unexpected textures that are inspired by nature, “easy” colors and instantly recognizable cultural motifs.
His products are classified green, focusing on providing sustainable and affordable articles made with longevity in mind. His manufacturing employs socially conscious production methods, or low impact processes as well as the use of vintage, re-purposed and or up-cycled products.
Marc and his family enjoy organic farming, and working to make the world a better and more conscientiously beautiful place.
