Milwaukee's Elena Velez, who's designed for Ariana Grande and Halsey, is semifinalist for LVMH Prize, 'the gold standard of fashion awards'

With her heart and soul in Milwaukee and her career in New York, award-winning fashion designer Elena Velez is up for the prestigious LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers.

"It's really the gold standard of fashion awards," Velez said over the phone as she made her way through Midtown Monday.

The 29-year-old mother of two grew up as the only child of a single mom, a Lake Michigan ship captain, and often joined her mom aboard vessels. Velez's clothing designs are a reflection of those "very beautiful but bleak" spaces she grew up in.

"I had kind of a crazy childhood growing up in the very industrial, utilitarian spaces in and around the Milwaukee lakes," Velez said. "The brand was always a little bit of a longing for a version of femininity that I just couldn't ever locate there. So, I had to kind of create it for myself with bits and pieces of that very nontraditional world."

While riding the choppy waves of the fashion industry, Velez has been written about by esteemed fashion publications, including Vogue, and presented designs to legendary Vogue Editor Anna Wintour. Ariana Grande, Solange Knowles, Julia Fox, Halsey and Emma Chamberlain have all donned her creations.

Now, Velez is one of 20 designers from around the world, aged 18 to 40, who are semifinalists for the LVMH Prize. The public can vote online for the eight they think should make it to the finals until 4:59 p.m. CT Tuesday.

Here's a look at Velez's illustrious, evocative and sometimes provocative career — what the young designer and her mom have sacrificed for it, including Velez's childhood home, and the LVMH Prize.

The story behind Elena Velez's 'paradoxical and contradictory' aesthetic

Velez described her aesthetic as "very paradoxical and contradictory." It's about strengths and softness, and a femininity that's complicated and multidimensional.

When Velez's mom, Holly Church, was working on boats in her early 20s, she got frustrated with "the glass ceiling." She realized the only way she'd be able to get further in the industry was to get her captain's license.

When Velez was around 3 years old, Church started running construction tugs. With those gigs often lasting a couple of days and Church being a single parent, Velez would sometimes have to tag along.

"Something that I really enjoyed was getting to be with her in these very beautiful but bleak industrial spaces in the Midwest," Velez said. "A lot of my childhood was spent in these very heavy metal spaces, like shipyards and engine rooms."

Later, when Church ran the Denis Sullivan, the crew would help out with Velez and teach her how to do rigging. When Church started captaining Edelweiss Cruises, Velez would sometimes sit in the pilot house with a kiddie cocktail and coloring book while her mom worked.

When Velez was around 4, Church said, "she was drawing on everything," from napkins and tablecloths to paper and books.

"Anything that she could find that she could get a picture into of a dress or clothing," Church said.

For Velez's fifth birthday, a friend gave her a blank sketch book. Velez called it her "Style Book," which she spelled "Stil," and filled it up with designs, Church said. Velez would go on to fill up "piles and piles and piles" of notebooks and books with pictures of people in clothing.

"As long as I remember, I was always compelled to collage different shapes and colors on the body," said Velez, who attended New Berlin West High School. "And, I've always loved fashion since before I could see any sort of commercial or economic profession in it."

After Church's friend gave Velez a sewing machine, Church got her then-12-year-old daughter into sewing lessons.

Velez's first fashion show of sorts was when she was 13 or 14 at the Pritzlaff Building, Church said.

"She's been driven to do this forever," said Church, who's now the executive director of the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center and a merchant marine boat captain for Edelweiss. "There was no alternative. It was something that's she's just had in her blood forever."

What Elena Velez and her mom have invested into Velez's designing dreams

But, if Velez could choose to love anything else, she "100% would."

"There are a lot more sustainably paced, lucrative, healthy vocations for me to apply my skillset and talents," Velez said. "But, there's just always been a divine connection towards this very peculiar thing."

Historically, to participate in fashion design, designers need a lot of private capital, a network and an entrepreneurial foundation, Velez explained. She started out with none of that.

And, that's something she's been speaking out about since entering the industry. Her brand identity is about "democratizing who can participate in the creation of the American fashion identity," Velez said.

"Historically, that's just been people who are relegated to New York, LA and the very cosmopolitan coasts," she said. "But I have a very Midwestern fashion-centric message and it's a valuable contribution to democratize creative resources and the creative perspective in the United States."

Late last year, the New York Times documented what the young designer and her mom have put into the pursuit of Velez's dreams: Selling the family home to help pay for Velez's tuition and fees, funds from Church's savings and retirement accounts, and more.

"When a child has a dream that strong, you do what you can to help them get where they've got to go," Church said.

Church said her daughter has "something special" and has been described by industry folks as "the one in the million."

"She has a vision. She has a voice. She has the creativity and the talent," Church said.

"All of the accolades and success we've had over the last couple of years have reinforced that there is resonance with the message we're trying to communicate and the aesthetic we're trying to put into the world," Velez said. "We just do whatever it takes to make sure we can make a viable company out of all of these things."

To become a fashion designer of a certain caliber, Velez said, there's a pretty specific trajectory that one must orient themselves toward.

Often, that process starts in school, she said. She attended Parsons Paris for two years, then interned in Australia. She graduated from the Parsons School of Design in New York City in 2018 and went on to graduate from the Central Saint Martins art school in London in 2020.

"Once you graduate, you move on to the competitions, where hopefully, you've been able to gain the exposure and potentially capitalize on some of the cash prizes," Velez explained. "And, from there, you get to start your own brand, hopefully."

Velez has an array of impressive accolades. She was named a Teen Vogue Generation Next designer in 2019. In 2022, she was named the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Emerging Designer of the Year and was a Vogue Fashion Fund winner. In 2023, she was the recipient of the Fashion Trust U.S. Sustainability Award and a finalist for the Emerging Latin American Designer/Brand Award by the Latin American Fashion Awards (Velez is of Puerto Rican heritage).

She was also recently named to Dazed 2023's list of 100 trailblazing creatives.

"They all cumulatively speak to all of the different points of interest that are part of the brand's significance," Velez said of her accolades. "There's a focus on sustainability, there's a focus on nontraditional founders of color, there's a focus on cultural impacts. And, just progressively, they paint a portrait of what we're trying to achieve here."

How Elena Velez became a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize

About six months ago, Velez filled out and submitted her LVMH Prize application. It included her experience in the design industry, education, a couple of short-answer questions and her portfolio of work from the last couple of seasons.

To be considered, applicants must have created at least two womenswear, menswear or genderless collections, according to the LVMH Prize website. Twenty semifinalists were chosen by a selection committee and announced Feb. 9.

"I was really excited," Velez said. "I feel really good about the brand and our message and about our aesthetic. And, I knew that it's a longevity game. And, one season or another we would be in the right place at the right time with the right collection. That happened to be this year. "

As a part of the contest, the semifinalists presented their collections in Paris during Fashion Week, which started Feb. 26 and runs through March 5.

Last week, the designers had a showroom there with a handful of their "most iconic brand looks that communicate the commercial trajectory as well as the high concept vision," Velez said. She prepared six looks, including a really high-concept one, as well as a couple of collaborative products from this past season, including shoes and bags.

The designers got to communicate the message of the brand to LVMH Prize experts and VIPs that came through. The experts got to ask the designers questions and submitted votes for who they think should be finalists.

According to the LVMH Prize website, after finalists are announced, they will travel to the Louis Vuitton Foundation to meet with Jury members, who audition them and pick winners.

The winner of the the LVMH Prize will be awarded a 300,000-euro endowment and a tailored mentorship by LVMH. The winner of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize will receive 150,000-euro allocation and a one-year mentorship by LVMH teams. Three designers will be selected to join the design studios of LVMH Houses for one year and receive a 10,000-euro allocation.

To vote for Velez, visit lvmhprize.com.

Elena Velez's creative process is 'very academic' and just as important as the finished product to her

Velez's creative process is "very academic."

"I go about the creation of a collection the same way that I would go about a persuasive essay," she said.

That includes reading, listening and conducting a lot of primary and secondary research.

Velez translates her general thesis and supporting evidence into "visual motifs and silhouettes."

"The process really for me is as important and special as the product," she said.

She considers herself a "method actor" of sorts when it comes to the way she constructs her garments.

"I really like to put myself into the mentality of the creator, who is centric to the source of inspiration for that season," she said.

Elena Velez has previously made headlines for 'Gone with the Wind' salon, muddy runway show

With the brand being "very much about complicated portraits of femininity and womanhood," Velez put on a salon in February themed around the controversial novel and film "Gone with the Wind" and "the feminist parallels between Scarlett O'Hara and the modern-day, contemporary woman."

"I think it's important to create spaces for open discourse in a place and a culture that can feel critically stifling," Velez said. "It's very rare in today's world we have anywhere else to celebrate or engage in art or culture outside of home and work. So, it's also up to the designer to create these spaces for engagement and to explore the potential for how fashion can really facilitate meaningful cultural engagement."

The salon — covered by Vogue and The Washington Post — was held at a "Gilded Age" $60 million mansion across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Velez had models and VIPs in looks made from scraps and salvaged materials that combined high-level silks with low-level acetates.

"It had a lot to do with a delusional demand for glamor on the precipice of Apocalypse," she said. "It really created a portrait of a complicated and almost obsessively compulsive desire to recreate a space of glamor that made no sense."

The event included a symposium, hosted by a couple of Velez's "favorite public intellectuals and podcasters" Jack Mason of "The Perfume Nationalist" and Anna Khachiyan of "The Red Scare."

"It was not only about reiterating my commitment to fashion but also building a community of people who can engage with that fashion in various, meaningful ways," she said.

Another move Velez made headlines for was her 2023 New York Fashion Week show.

Models trudged into and through a mud pit runway in "their webby corset dresses and ruched tops and skirts, slipping and sliding," according to The Washington Post. It ended in a mud pit fight between a handful of models, Vogue Runway reported.

Velez declined to talk to reporters after the show, but offered up manifesto-style show notes, the Post wrote.

Elena Velez's ultimate goal, what the future holds

Velez's ultimate goal: To be able to continue pursuing her passion and make meaningful works.

"The artist's most sacred dream is to be able to always to continue to support themselves and to continue to explore their own mind through their work into the future," she said. "I don't need to be rich. I don't need to be famous. I just need to continue to create work in a way that feels meaningful to me time after time."

Velez is in the beginning stages of development and prototyping for her next collection, which will be shown at New York Fashion Week in September. Afterwards, that collection will be taken to market, where wholesalers and retailers will place orders. Then, production to fulfill those orders will begin.

At some point, Velez is considering adding a Midwest manufacturing component to her brand that could fulfill and create inventory for herself, as well as other local contractors. She would want that to also include a makers space for collaborators she works with.

"Just continue to serve as a pipeline to the industry for other nontraditional makers in the Midwest," she said.

In the future, Velez aspires to expand into "adjacent creative industries," including interior design, experience performance, sound and more.

On a personal note, Velez — mom to Atlas, 3, and Freja, 1 — and her husband, Andreas Emenius, a painter from Stockholm, recently bought a home in upstate New York, which Velez is looking forward to renovating and decorating.

For more info on Elena Velez and to keep up with her journey

For more information on Velez, visit her website, elenavelez.com. And, to keep up with her journey, follow her on Instagram at instagram.com/elenavelez/?hl=en.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Elena Velez semifinalist for LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers