nora james production company

Fashion, in its highest and truest form, is an art; a reflection of multifaceted humanity and its ever changing world.  Charlie has been an unwitting student of such reflections her entire life, and well before she knew it would inform her own metier.

 

 Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, a city whose very bones -- its architecture -- are praised for genius elements of design and craft, she was surrounded daily by projections of humanity on the city.  From skyrises to bungalows, museums and fountains, from commissioned sculptures to the inner city’s colorful street art, and even the underground origins of house music, the city taught her daily about production and design that comprises, and conforms to, the soul of its canvas.  She took in the richness of the city experience like artistic osmosis, and began learning to develop her own contributions as a dancer at four years old. She studied ballet for many years, and would continue this endeavor throughout adulthood, studying and performing Horton modern dance at Joel Hall Dance Center.  

 

In 2008 she graduated from Chicago’s DuPaul University with a degree in social work and public health.  Having witnessed the crippling effects of the inner city’s lack of resources she knew that parts of the city were still very much soul sick, disproportionately so, and she desired to help ease that pain by first tending the physical.  Providing health education for at risk youth had become a new passion in college, and Charlie lent her empathy and leadership abilities to enabling healthier sexual decisions and awareness among the youth of that community from 2007-2010.  During that time she, like many 20 somethings, also developed a personal sense of style.  Unlike many however, hers was something utterly unique; bold and forward, yet harkening ever to the traditional, and always ultra “feminine”.  Friends lauded her creative ease and often commissioned her to shop and dress them for special events of all magnitudes.  Although such regard aroused dreams of styling wardrobes for magazine spreads (while dancing part time), she recognized a bigger need within the community and decided to render those endeavors hobbies.  

 

She continued her efforts in public health, switching tracks to care for adults with varying mental and developmental disabilities, such as downs syndrome, cerebal palsy and other forms of mental and physical disbilities from 2010-2014.  Although there were some obvious limitations on her ability to completely transform these people’s lives, she was still insightful and sensitive enough to recognize that many her clients’ emotional states were improved when she could help them feel more confident as they stepped out into the world.  And thus Charlie found herself infusing her talent for fashion into her work in public health.  

 

Some of the clients in that field had trouble communicating with their caretakers.  Conversely, many caretakers often found it difficult to understand the client.  Having been a dancer though, an artist who uses the body to express the soul in ways that words sometimes cannot, Charlie was able to discern the utterly human translation beyond the verbal, and thereby create a sartorial pallet that gave visual dimension to the complexities within.  Adorning the body was by no means a true solution, but her clients, and their parents, many of whom populated Chicago’s elite, were pleased with the transformative power of her work.  Ultimately she began to see how fashion could aid various healing processes from the outside in.

 

With a practical future in art seeming more and more plausible, Charlie committed herself to wardrobing efforts, co-founding styling house, Nora James Production Company Inc., in 2013.  Within a year she had landed her first major gig as wardrobe stylist for an ESPN commercial.  The television giant’s 2014 NBA Draft tease, “I Am Not The Hype”, afforded her the opportunity, not only to work with their own internationally renowned production team, but also with Emmy Award winning outfit, Evolve Production Company, as well as top picks of the NBA Draft.  Such experience has served to solidify her professionalism and acuity in the field, and since then she has lent her skills as head wardrobe stylist to many photoshoots, working with teams from NBC, Univision, and Oprah Winfrey Production Company, and collaborating with make-up artists from Kevin Aucoin and Yves Saint Laurent, among others.

 

As her artistic vision expands, it continually dovetails with her commitment to social work.  Her latest venture, “I’m So Awesome”, seeks to embolden survivors of domestic and societal abuse by applying the techniques she had found so transformative in disability service.  Participants receive full make overs, one of the first steps in a push for better self care and esteem, and then immortalize the experience through photography.  To that end, Charlie uses her dancer’s ability to define and express the individual soul, implementing it through the movement of fabric, the mood of color and the symbolism of props to highlight the inner strengths of these resilient people; to honor their voyages and remind them exactly why they are “So Awesome”.