Lexington fashion designer's career started in Honduran sweatshops

The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning usually hosts literary events and educational programs. But on a recent Saturday night, it looked like a fashion arena in Paris or Milan.

The audience sat near the runway for Future of Fashion 2, where lithe, leggy models walked the runway in the latest designs from 11 Lexington-area designers — which, for most people, are 11 more designers than they knew were working in the Bluegrass.

At the top of the marquee and the center of this burgeoning Lexington fashion scene was Soreyda Benedit Beg ley, a 33-year-old mother of three who got her start in fashion far away from Kentucky under far less glamorous circumstances.

"When I first heard about her, I said, 'What designer lives in Lexington?' " said Alysha Harris, who will wear one of Begley's designs when she competes in the Miss U.S. International pageant in July. "If you know anything about fashion in Lexington, you know about Soreyda."

Andrew Kung, a well-traveled Central Kentucky fashion photographer who has worked with Begley for more than a year, said, "She's a huge asset to the community. She's put so many people together it's unbelievable. So she's a mover and a shaker, and then she's a driving force on the other side: as a designer.

"She's probably the person motivating more people to get out there and pursue this as a profession."

Far from building her own fashion brand, Begley's peers credit her with trying to pull people in Lexington's fashion community together to raise awareness of local designers.

"She's an artist really involved in her community," said Laverne Zabielski, a Lexington fiber artist who has worked with Begley. "She's really involved in pulling people in, and she's generous with her talent."

A big part of the goal is to raise the perception of fashion from frivolous shopping and celebrity gawking.

"It is our art," Begley said in the garage studio of her Lexington home.

It's an art she started learning as a child in her native Honduras.

Art from a sweatshop

Born with asthma, she stayed inside most of her childhood, drawing and making clothes for her dolls.

Then, when she was 14, she went to work in garment-making sweatshops.

"You don't feel like you have any other options because it's daily, routine," Begley said. "You can do the same thing for two or three months, non-stop, the same stitch, the same thing, repeatedly, every day, over and over."

She started working as a sweatshop seamstress three months a year when she was in school. After graduation, she went to work full-time. That's when she knew she needed to get out.

"I guess I am too much of a creative person," Begley said, remembering the sweatshop, "because it was like death."

In an effort to get out of the drudgery and go to college, she went to work for the forest service in Palacios, in the Honduran state of Gracias a Dios. That's where she met American anthropologist Christopher Begley.

He had gone to Honduras to help build a museum in the small village, where he ended up working with Soreyda.

"We were in this dugout canoe together for about 12 hours one day," Christopher Begley recalled. "We talked and laughed and, by the end, I knew that I was going to marry her."

Theirs wasn't the easiest courtship. With her living in a remote village, a radio was the only form of communication they had.

"After two months, I went to visit my parents, and I had given him my sister's number and, when I got there, my sister said, 'This gringo has been calling non-stop for two months,' " Soreyda said.

The couple eventually married, living in Honduras for a year, during which time she and her sister opened a dressmaking and tailoring shop.

"People would bring in pictures from magazines, and she would make them outfits that looked like them," Christopher said.

The couple moved to the United States in 1998, when he got a position at the University of Kentucky. He has since moved to Transylvania University, where he is an associate professor of anthropology and runs his own Exploration Foundation.

Getting serious

Soreyda Benedit Begley worked on sewing and design all along, but her husband said it was around 2008 that things got serious.

She began getting her work out more and meeting other designers, firing one another's creativity. In the past few years, she has had runway shows in New York and Atlanta, participated in Virginia Fashion Week and had her work featured in several fashion magazines, including Fashion Chicago and Modeling International.

"She's different than what you would expect in Lexington," said Sarah Jane Estes, 21, one of Begley's partners in the Lexington Fashion Collaborative, which presented the Future of Fashion this year and last.

Estes, who was named designer of the year at Future of Fashion 2, called Begley's style "a controlled use of the unexpected," noting, "she always has a variety of textures and colors in her pieces. She is adventurous in this sense, but it is never too loud or wild."

Begley's work is primarily casual and elegant women's clothing, though she does do some men's and children's designs.

She said a variety of texture and color is a key to her work, noting she never uses one piece of fabric for an entire garment.

"I have two different focuses in my looks: one that is very soft and romantic and the other one that is more rock 'n' roll and edgy," Begley said, adding that there is a Latin influence there. "My clothes are very feminine, with a big focus on the fitting. We Latino women like clothes that fit close to the body and show the shape."

Zabielski said a key to Begley's fashion is in details, noting that her Future of Fashion collection was 10 versions of the little black dress, with variations in length, fabric and ornamentation.

Fellow designers and other peers credit Begley with an elegant, edgy look to her clothes. They also laud her excellent craftsmanship, an actual benefit of her sweatshop experience. Viewers of fashion reality shows such as Lifetime Television's Project Runway know that sewing often separates winners from also-rans. Begley has sewing down pat.

"You really learn a solid technique at the sewing academies," Begley said of the programs that prepare girls for shop work in Honduras.

And yes, Begley and Estes have applied for Project Runway.

Estes said, "What probably weeds out a lot of people is the application process because no one in their right mind would have time to do all that. But we're crazy, so we do it."

They do a lot more, too.

Balancing fashion and life

The afternoon they were scheduled to leave for a trip to Chicago, the pair were in the studios of KET with a dozen models preparing for a taping of an episode of Connections with Renee Shaw that will air this weekend.

While pinning the hem of model Carol Czirr Russell's slacks, Begley talked through several upcoming obligations, including Future of Fashion 2 details.

She juggles all of these projects with her three children — Isabella, 8; William, 7; and Aaron, 3.

On a Wednesday morning, Harris, the pageant contestant, arrived for a fitting of the gown she will wear for the Miss U.S. International competition. It was at the same time Aaron woke up, and Begley had a 20-minute ordeal getting the sleepy boy to let her go so she could complete the fitting.

At this point, much of the work is a labor of love for Begley. Her clothes are available in Lexington at Zags on South Limestone, but she hopes her work will become a profitable enterprise, one that will allow her to employ people in a much more equitable situation than her early experiences in Honduras.

Numerous colleagues say that will happen.

"She's getting in front of so many people," said Kung, the photographer. "Soon, she's going to get in front of the right person."

This story was originally published June 13, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Lexington fashion designer's career started in Honduran sweatshops."