Skip to content

Nelson fashion designer invited to New York Fashion Week

But Lillea Goian needs help covering the expensive admission fee
12834014_web1_copy_180726-KWS-Fashion1
Nelson native Lillea Goian, seen here after showing her designs at an event in January, has been invited to participate in New York Fashion Week. She’s asking for financial help to cover the expensive entrance fee. Photo submitted

Lillea Goian is just a runway away from having her electric kool-aid acid test clothing on the biggest stage in the fashion world.

But she’ll need a lot of help to get there.

The Nelson native and Vancouver-based fashion designer, best known locally as Lillz Killz, has been invited to New York Fashion Week in September. That’s where celebrities, magazine editors and influencers will get to see Goian’s colourful, funky clothing first-hand.

“New York Fashion Week is the ultimate fashion week in the world. …,” said Goian. “If you get the opportunity to go there you can’t say no.”

Except she might have to. The 20-year-old L.V. Rogers grad needs $10,000 to pay for the entrance fee, and she needs it by mid-to-late August.

“The funding isn’t there because I’m an independent artist,” said Goian. “My family has basically exhausted all of our finances. We’re sort of just treading along to make big things happen and that’s the only way you can make it big is if you can make that next step. So this is that opportunity for me and I really don’t want to say no to it.”

A GoFundMe page, which can be found here, was set up Tuesday to finance Goian’s trip and had raised $2,230 in just two days. Because Goian is sponsored by the Global Fashion Collective, which is an arm of Vancouver Fashion Week that promotes talent, her fee to New York is half of what the actual cost is.

But it’s still a big ask, and for not much time on the runway. Goian will be sharing the spotlight with four other designers from the collective, which means the actual time her work will be seen should only end up being about four to five minutes.

As she learned at Tokyo Fashion Week last October, however, it’s an important five minutes.

“When I was in Tokyo I had four minutes on the runway. So a full 10-day trip to Tokyo and so much prep and then you get four minutes on the runway. It’s going to be something like that. …,” she said. “But in the end it’s still a huge opportunity because people will still be seeing my work on the runway.”

Related: Lillz Killz fashion hits Nelson

Goian has been busy since leaving Nelson. She attended and graduated from Vancouver’s John Casablancas Institute, moved from reworking vintage clothing into original pieces with the debut of her line Profanity, and was sent to Tokyo on a fully funded trip by Vancouver Fashion Week.

If her fundraising campaign works, New York will be the latest big step for a talented woman with neon-coloured ambitions.

“I’m already at that point where I am self employed and I have a studio and I’m still playing designer all the time, which basically even a year ago was my ultimate dream. But now that’s here and I want to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until I’m at the top.”



tyler.harper@nelsonstar.com

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter



Tyler Harper

About the Author: Tyler Harper

I’m editor-reporter at the Nelson Star, where I’ve worked since 2015.
Read more