Designer Carrie Hammer celebrates 'Role Models Not Runway Models' on the catwalk

It’s a runway revolution.

New York Fashion Week designer Carrie Hammer is celebrating women from all walks of life on her catwalk this Thursday.

NYC

Her fourth “Role Models Not Runway Models” show features female CEOs, Olympians, activists and entrepreneurs in lieu of traditional fashion models in order to change the face - and figure - of beauty.

“We always want to make sure that every woman sees herself reflected and represented on the runway,” says Hammer, who launched her brand, which she describes as “corner-office couture,” in New York two years ago.

She realized while she was casting her first show in February 2014 that the standard fashion industry waifs didn’t fit her brand’s Wonder Woman image.

 

So she began casting her own clients, including Dr. Danielle Sheypuk, a clinical psychologist who became the first model in a wheelchair to “walk” a New York Fashion Week runway.

The response was electric. “I got 300 emails from girls and the mothers of girls who have disabilities saying, ‘Thank you so much. I want to model now. I feel beautiful for the first time ever,’” says Hammer. “I still get those emails to this day, and it’s become this incredible movement.”

The 27 empowering mentors modeling Hammer’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection in partnership with Dove at the Manhattan Mercedes-Benz Showroom on Sunday include Olympic figure skating gold medalist and “Dancing with the Stars” champ Meryl Davis, TED executive producer June Cohen, comedian with cerebral palsy Maysoon Zayid, United Nations Communications and Advocacy Advisor LaNeice Collins, and the Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office for International Affairs Penny Abeywardena, who is coordinating the Pope’s visit to New York later this month.

 

“We have a waitlist of 500 role models,” marvels Hammer, who’s no slouch, herself. She was named one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” and included on Entrepreneur Magazine’s “15 Women Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2015” this year.

“We want to make sure we’re casting not only diversity of looks and age and ability, but to also provide a lot of different careers and things you can do as a woman,” Hammer adds. “So if she can see it, she can be it.”

Even as her models are meant to bring more diversity to the fashion industry, her collection also shakes up what women wear to work by reinterpreting professional menswear into what she calls “CEO chic.“

“Power and femininity aren’t mutually exclusive. Brains and beauty go hand-in-hand,” she says. “So a lot of the looks are going to be reflective of women being feminine and tough at the same time, with a lot of black and white, a lot of patterns, and the contrast of more powerful leather and more feminine lace.”

Hammer’s role models have already opened the door to diversity on other runways. She made history this past February by featuring the first model with Down Syndrome at New York Fashion Week when she included “American Horror Story” actress Jamie Brewer on her catwalk.