VERMILION, Ohio – A Northeast Ohio native is in the international spotlight for his cutting edge fashion designs and revolutionary styling skills.
Curtis Cassell is scoring high marks on Amazon Prime Video’s reality competition “Making the Cut” as he gives a big shout out to his hometown of Vermilion.
“My favorites are just the messages like, hey, keep doing you. I love that. That’s inspiring, you know?” Cassell said.
The Vermilion High School senior’s design is gaining widespread acclaim.
As a contestant on Amazon Prime Video’s third season of “Making the Cut,” the Vermilion High School senior’s creativity and talent stand out among a crowd of ten designers from around the world.
They are all competing for a cool $1 million prize and a mentorship with Amazon Fashion.
Every episode they design seems up for a challenge.
The looks are judged by a star-studded panel including Heidi Klum, Nicole Richie and Jeremy Scott.
After each fashion show – the accessible look of the winner with additional colors and accompanying pieces are available in the Amazon store.
“The main thing that Tim and Heidi wanted to do with this new show was to create a direct connection between the viewer and the consumer and the designer,” said Cassell.
The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity didn’t happen overnight.
Cassell applied for the show on a whim thanks to a friend’s encouragement.
For years he hustled as a waiter and noticed that there was a clear gap when it came to wedding attire.
He wanted to change the landscape and include his voice for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I worked a lot of weddings, and then I realized, Wow, the wedding system is really binary. It’s literally a black suit and a white dress. There’s nothing in between.”
At that moment, the Queera clothing line was born at the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago Interior Architecture grad.
Cassell describes it as a gray scale of clothing colors that fall in the middle.
The motto is to fit your body, not define your gender.
It says it’s a non-binary clothing label for anyone – who want to look and feel their true self.
“It was really important to me not to create clothes that had a gender attached to them, but just to create different clothes that you can put in your closet and wear however you want to wear them .
Cassell says the show has begun to change his life, but his heart and family, including his mom, dad, brother Chris and both sets of grandparents, are still in Vermilion, Ohio, where it all began.
“It’s been very exciting, it’s representing my state and my hometown, you know, little Vermillion, you know, Harbor City on the Lake.”
While his family keeps him humble, he says he’ll never forget the moment supermodel and talk show host Heidi Klum complimented him.
“What you don’t see in the first episode — Heidi Klum is critiquing me and she’s like, Oh, by the way, you’re very hot. And yes, Caliente. And I like to melt.”
Making the Cut is streaming now on Amazon’s Prime Video.
To view Cassell models click here: QUEERA (queerawang.com)
