Lakeland Native Working Her Way to the Head of the Class

You could say that Gigi Burris has always had fashion on her mind, though more recently it's been on her head.

Burris, a Lakeland native and 2005 graduate of Lakeland High School, is currently working in New York City as a millinery designer - that is someone who designs things you wear on your head, including hats, veils, headbands and hair clips.

It's a field that's treated her well so far - landing her work in fashion magazines, at New York's Fashion Week and on a national TV show - and one that's already been a springboard for bigger, un-head-related things.

"I see myself in five to seven years having an apparel line," said Burris, who has a pair of sunglasses and an outfit she designed featured in the February edition of Interview magazine.

In her 22 years, Burris said fashion has always been front and center.

In high school, she was president of the fashion club, though she says back then her style was a bit more small-town than uptown.

"I wore jeans and Lacoste polos," said Burris, whose effervescent personality translates with ease over the phone.

"I felt like I dressed a little weird, but nothing too crazy. I was the first person at school to wear a Juicy Couture track suit."

Burris' mother, Ginny, said her daughter's eye for fashion was actually apparent way before high school.

"Even when Gigi was really little, she had a certain way of dressing. We would go over to see my mom and her bridge group and she would say to the women, 'What a great color of lipstick' or 'I love your scarf,'" said Ginny Burris, an agent at Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Lakeland.

At a remarkably young age, Ginny Burris added, Gigi knew she wanted to live in New York and make it in fashion. There was no question about it.

"She never thought that wouldn't be a possibility," said Ginny Burris, who is married to Brent Burris, owner of Burris Realty. Ginny and Brent have one other child, 19-year-old daughter Aubrey, who is studying pre-law at Stetson University and is not at all interested in fashion.

"I don't take any credit. It's only a favor of God that my child happened to be the one that got to do this, this, this and that. It's beyond my wildest imagination," Ginny Burris said.

Just as she'd always planned, following her high school graduation Burris headed for New York City to study at Parsons The New School for Design - you might know it best as the school where aspiring designers work while on the show "Project Runway."

While studying at Parsons, Burris did a summer intensive study in Paris, where she realized her love for millinery.

"There are these incredible old-world shops that sold millinery supplies. I was inspired," said Burris, who goes by Gigi, a shortened version of her legal name of Virginia.

After returning to New York, Burris adopted millinery as her craft. She worked as an apprentice for Leah Chafen, a couture millinery designer, where she was able to apply her broad knowledge of fashion design to her chosen niche.

"I had the working vocabulary of how to make hats," she said.

For her senior thesis at Parsons, Burris designed Florida-themed hats.

"It was an ode to a Florida swamp. I used a lot of alligator skin, peacock feathers.

"It was this surrealist, swampy vibe," she said. (Perhaps one of her biggest "I've made it" moments came in 2009, when the pop star Rihanna got a look at those Florida-themed hats during a photo shoot for W magazine's March issue. She loved them, and Burris gave two of them to her. Burris is hoping to see the singer photographed in them one day and is crossing her fingers that Rihanna may even commission custom pieces.)

Burris' Florida-themed hats got her nominated for Parsons' designer of the year in 2009, an honor only about 10 students out of several hundred received. Though she didn't earn that recognition, she was on her way.

She graduated from Parsons in May 2009 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in fashion design, and set out to build a career, establishing Gigi Burris Millinery LLC. She works full-time at developing her business, performing everything from designing and production to publicity. She also occasionally does freelance design and stylist assisting.

Her work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Italian Vogue, Elle and Bazaar. Her line can be found in a downtown New York City boutique, and in 2009 she did the millinery for designer Julie Haus during Spring Fashion Week. Her work also recently appeared on the hit show, "Ugly Betty." Her fashions will be featured in a special collaboration with a classical music group at the upcoming Fall Fashion Week.

The attention is well-deserved, said Burris' friend, David Thielebeule, senior accessories editor at Harper's Bazaar.

"As an editor at Bazaar I have the opportunity to see millinery from the best designers in the world and Gigi is certainly competitive. Her designs have a modern edge that many classic milliners lack. This new and very up-to-date way of looking at hats is her greatest advantage," he said in an e-mail to The Ledger.

Does Burris have a hot career? Yes. But what's the market for hats? Turns out, it is alive, even if it doesn't always trickle down to, say, those of us in Burris' hometown.

"It used to be that you weren't fully dressed if you didn't have a hat," she said. "It's actually still alive, but it's not as prevalent as it was in decades past."

Perhaps the best illustration of the decline of millinery: "You used to be able to buy millinery supplies in New York at three or four places. Now there's only one," Burris said.

Hats - unless they're of the baseball variety - may not be a common sight here in Polk, but Burris encourages fashionistas to keep an open mind, er, head.

"Take a fashion risk," she said.

And, when it comes to fashion in general, geography is no excuse for a lack of creativity. Just because your address is Polk, not Park Avenue, doesn't mean you don't have plenty of options for looking good, she said. In fact, one of Burris' favorite shopping destinations is in Lakeland.

"My girlfriends and I would always go to the Lakeland Goodwill and get all these vintage clothes instead of going to (Lakeland Square). We would get these old-lady vintage tops that we would rework with ribbons," Burris said. "When I have friends in from New York, we always go there. People ask me, 'Where did you get that vintage piece?' I tell them the Lakeland Goodwill."

[ Rachel Pleasant Chambliss can be reached at 863-802-7533 or rachel.pleasant@theledger.com. ]