Inspiration to Online Sales: Fashion Designer Kris Keys

Whether an artist is born or made has been debated for a long time and no definitive answer has ever been established. But there is no question that Kris Keys is an artist and that she was born with a natural talent and artistic vision.

Kris was also born with oddly shaped red blood cells, and their pediatrician had recommended a blood transfusion. Kris’s mother, Gwen Keys, was hesitant. It was 1985 and HIV infection was at its height.  Gwen was a nurse and she was not going to approve a blood transfusion unless she got a definitive diagnosis to back her up.  

St. Jude’s Research Hospital, famous world-wide for its research and treatment of childhood cancers, was located in their hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Some might call this a coincidence, but Gwen Keys says it was a “gift from the Lord.” Doctors at St. Jude’s found that Kris had Hereditary Elliptocytosis, a genetic blood disorder that causes misshapen red blood cells, and a trait that both sides of the family would have been carrying for generations.  

St. Jude’s continued to monitor Kris through her early childhood. When she was seven years old, she began to show symptoms of an aplastic crisis. Usually caused by a virus, an aplastic crisis causes the body to temporarily stop producing new red blood cells. While this is something that people without Kris’s blood disorder can commonly tolerate, for Kris it was a matter of life and death. In order to distract this very sick child while she was undergoing a blood transfusion in response to the crisis, the nurses at St. Jude’s provided her with art supplies. Even at that young age, Kris’s artwork showed promise.  Her mother recalls seeing one where “Grace Jones was getting ready to jump off the paper.” (St. Jude Story: Art Imitates Life: How One Woman Draws Inspiration From Illness, by Grace Korzekwa, March 5, 2019)

After Kris graduated from high school, she attended the University of Tennessee, earning a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising. An internship in New York City at the fashion house of Trina Turk was available and she told her mother how much she wanted to do it.  Gwen Keys was supportive of the idea but said they couldn’t afford to have Kris do it.  Little did she know, however, that Kris had already accepted the position and was determined to make it happen.  And somehow, she did!

After completing the internship, Kris stayed in New York City and worked for fashion companies as well as studying illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology.  Realizing that her main passion lay in fashion illustration, two years later she decided to move to England and attend The London College of Fashion.  Inspired by living in a new country, she started to create sketches from the fashion events during London Fashion Week, posting some of her work on Tumblr.  After a few months she got her first commission and began to do freelance fashion illustrations.                    

In addition to fashion illustrations, Kris has created portfolios for numerous hotels, including Rocco Forte, the St. Pancras Renaissance, the Rosebery at Mandarin Oriental in London, and the Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo. She has held watercolor workshops in locations such as the Wellness Sanctuary & Holistic Spa in Thailand, done illustrations as part of fundraising events, and spoken to girls’ groups in Memphis about following your dreams.

While she was studying in London, Kris experienced complications from her blood disorder and ended up in the hospital. Relating the experience in University of Tennessee’s “Campus Scene,” Kris recalls how the doctors kept coming into her room and taking blood. She figured they were probably using some of it to show students in the lab, since her disorder is rare enough that they might never otherwise have the opportunity.  Curious about what her blood looked like, Kris asked the doctors to show her some photos. The pictures of her blood looked like watercolors, which was the medium she used to make her illustrations! This experience was the inspiration for her first collection, “Hematology.”

During her many travels, Kris had discovered the need for versatile and comfortable travel garments. Combining this with her artistic perception of the pictures she had seen during her hospital stay, Kris designed a collection of six clothing items for women that are durable and comfortable for travel. The colors and patterns reflect the shapes and movements of blood and blood cells. She wanted to “… take something so unappealing as an illness and show people that beauty can come from anything.” (A Rare Sickness Inspired This Illustrator & Designer Making Fashion Her Canvas, by Joce Blake, 3/20/19) The collection was unveiled in early 2019.  

Packaging for Beauty and Flexibility

With the establishment of her clothing line, Kris wanted to find packaging for her online sales that would reflect the artistic essence and quality of her creations. She was referred to BoxUp by a client and was attracted to the aesthetics of their boxes and their flexibility in creating special orders. Kris has also been impressed with their frequent communication, keeping her up to date on production details, and even on one occasion catching an inconsistency in her order. Kris says this gives her a lot of confidence—knowing that she has backup in this area when necessary.

Kris loves to travel and says she is known among her friends as the person most likely to connect with a stranger. Having visited so many places in the world, it might seem she would have difficulty picking a favorite, but Kris definitely loves Tokyo the best. In developing her artistic style of illustration, Kris was influenced greatly by Shodo, a Japanese form of calligraphy. When she finally got to see Tokyo in person, she found it a “magical” place, loving the Japanese attention to artistic details such as the fonts and colors used in advertising and even appreciating the artistic vibe of a vending machine!

Kris still wants to visit Africa, Mexico, South and Central America, and would like to learn more about the colors and natural dyes that characterize the handcrafts and clothing made in those areas of the world. For her next collection she will draw inspiration from her hometown of Memphis and its lively and colorful culture—something that she readily admits she took for granted while she was growing up.  

No matter how far she may have travelled from Memphis, though, Kris credits her mother for much of her success. “My mom educated us to live unapologetically outside the box,” she says, “and go full force for our dreams.” And that is clearly what she has done.