Mansfielder competes on Hulu’s reality fashion show, Dress My Tour

MANSFIELD — Todd Fisher has made a name for himself with sleek showstoppers and bold faux furs.

The New York-based fashion designer has created looks for celebrities like Ariana Grande, Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Hudson, Lil Nas X, Thalia and Keke Palmer.

But two decades ago, he was honing his eye for style in art class at Mansfield Senior High School.

“I was artistic in high school. I took a lot of art classes,” he said. “I didn’t know it was fashion back then. I just wanted to draw and be creative in that sense.”

This time last year, Fisher was competing in the first season of Dress My Tour.

The Hulu original series follows 11 fashion designers as they create custom looks for celebrities like JoJo Siwa, Paula Abdul, Toni Braxton, Ty Dolla $ign and compete for a $100,000 prize.

The full series dropped on Tuesday.

We spoke with Fisher about his experience on Dress My Tour, his journey into the fashion industry and his advice for aspiring young designers. Below is a transcript of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Proceed with caution — questions marked ** contain spoilers from the show.

Richland Source: When did you film the show?

Todd Fisher: Last August, 2023.

Richland Source: If you had to describe the Dress My Tour experience in one word, what would it be?

Todd Fisher: Whirlwind. That’s the first thing that came to mind. It was very taxing. There were 16 hour days. It doesn’t really show it on camera, because it’s all condensed down to one-hour episodes, but they were very long days. I work in fashion; I work in entertainment and I’m used to long days, but not on a tv set surrounded by so many people and their emotions.

It was definitely something that I was not used to. It was something I would do again though. I don’t know if I would do it in a competition setting, but I would love to do television again.

Richland Source: What was your favorite piece you made for the show?**

Todd Fisher: For the Avant-garde challenge, I made this catsuit with these chains and this wig. I worked really hard on that. The premise for that challenge was that it had to be sewn by hand to be like a couture challenge. I attached all those chains individually all by hand.

That was something that I would have made in the real world. I probably would have changed the fabrics a little bit, but that silhouette, the concept is something that I definitely would do. I probably will do something similar to that outside of the show.

Richland Source: There was definitely a lot of onscreen drama between the contestants. Is that something the show encouraged, or did it come about organically?

Todd Fisher: A lot of contestants’ interviews were private, so we never knew what was being said behind closed doors until now. We were all friends and as the show continued, as you can see, the tension was building, but I didn’t realize the full extent of the drama until seeing those confessionals when the show aired.

Richland Source: It seemed like you were trying to toe the line between staying out of the drama and defending your designs.

Todd Fisher: I didn’t want to sabotage my character. I didn’t want to go out there and play something that I wasn’t.

You see me standing up for myself a couple of times on the show, but I was very cautious of how I conducted myself because I didn’t want anything I said to be taken out of context when the show was being edited.

Also I didn’t want to talk s— and then two seconds later, be sent home and look silly because the show was so unpredictable. I’m not typically shy. I don’t hold back my thoughts whatsoever when it comes to defending myself, but when you have a camera in your face, you’re very cautious, because you don’t want to say the wrong thing.

I didn’t want to be there just to be arguing and fighting with people. I went there to compete and try something new.

Richland Source: Do you keep in touch with anyone from the show? **

Todd Fisher: I made some lasting friendships with people that were on the show. There’s four of us, we get along really well. There’s a couple of us that are in a group chat. We talk daily, especially since the show has come out. 

There’s one contestant, Fi, she’s the nicest person. She and I are really close now, so I’m grateful for that. I actually tried to vote her off one episode, but she wasn’t mad at all. She understood. She didn’t hold a grudge.

Richland Source: That was such a brutal twist, having the designers vote each other off. 

Todd Fisher: It was shocking. It was a little jarring to us when they told us that. It changed the competition. It showed people’s true colors. The show is a microcosm for the real world. If that makes any sense.

Richland Source: Is the real fashion world that competitive and dramatic?

Todd Fisher: I wouldn’t say it’s that dramatic, but it’s definitely that competitive. People have to eat. I don’t think there’s so much backstabbing as there was on the show. The actual fashion industry, it’s not always like that, but it definitely can be.

Richland Source: I’m sure you’ve been limited in how much you can talk about the show before it premiered. What’s it been like keeping that secret? **

Todd Fisher: It wasn’t super hard to keep it a secret because I didn’t win, so I wasn’t chomping at the bit to tell everybody. I came in fourth, which is commendable, but it’s not what I wanted. I wanted to go out there and win, so I was a little disappointed. 

Close friends and family knew about the show, but I couldn’t divulge any details. I came back and everybody wanted to ask me a million questions. And I was like, ‘I can’t answer a lot of these because I signed a contract.’

Thankfully, I came home from filming and immediately got back to work. The universe must have seen my passion for this, because as soon as I got back, I got job after job. It’s just been non-stop since I got back from the show. It was never like that before I went out there. So the universe is definitely conspiring to keep me busy. I was grateful for that.

Richland Source: Who was your favorite celebrity guest to work with on the show? **

Todd Fisher: French Montana. 

Richland Source: Do you have other favorite celebrities you’ve worked with outside of the show?

Todd Fisher: I do a lot with Mary J. Blige. I’ve sold a bunch of stuff to Miley Cyrus. She and her stylist have bought a bunch of things off of me. To my knowledge, she’s never worn anything, but she has supported my brand since the beginning. 

I made a coat for Lil Nas X that he wore on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

Recently, I’ve gotten into television. I did something for American Horror Story. There’s a new show on HBO called The Penguin. I made one of the faux fur coats that the female lead, Emma Roberts, is going to be wearing in that. That comes out in September.

Television is a lot of fun.

Richland Source: And who would be your dream client, someone you haven’t worked with yet, but would really love to?

Todd Fisher: There’s a couple of them. Cardi B would be one of them. Manuel Turizo. Rihanna. Beyonce. 

Richland Source: Do you ever create fashions for “ordinary people?”

Todd Fisher: Yeah, I do collections. I want to start one immediately, but I’ve just been so busy lately. I do menswear and womenswear. I create ready-to-wear pieces. That’s actually what I enjoy the most is creating without parameters. 

When I get celebrity clients, there’s a mood board and you have to follow what they’re comfortable with. But when I create these collections, I don’t have to follow any parameters. I can create without any boundaries. That’s what I enjoy the most. It’s freeing. 

If I’m ever feeling some type of way, depressed or sad or anything like that, that’s the stuff that gets me out of bed because I’m really excited to just create for my brand.

The celebrity stuff is nice. It’s good for press. It’s good to get your name out there. But I get the most joy from making my collections for sure. 

Richland Source: You mentioned your brand is 100% vegan. Why is that important to you?

Todd Fisher: I love animals so much. I’ve had pets. My aunt has a farm of horses. I just have a connection to animals. I think they’re better than people.

The fashion industry is horrible towards animals. It’s getting better, but in 2016, it was like a political stance for me. I had to explain a lot of it to people.

Since then, the fashion industry has trended towards faux fur. A lot of these major brands have taken a stance and said that they refuse to work with real fur.

But when I did it, none of them were saying that. I was a little bit ahead of the curve in that sense. 

Richland Source: How would you describe your style as a designer?

Todd Fisher: I like to do a lot of luxury. I use a lot of high-end fabrics and high-end finishings. It’s very flashy. It’s very eye-catching.

A lot of it is geared for performance. For that reason, it’s meant to be eye-catching. It’s also very chic and clean. I don’t do a lot of messy, overdesigned stuff. It’s very simple in a sense — clean lines. It’s classic.

Richland Source: Does that differ much from your personal style?

Todd Fisher: Oh, yeah. I don’t really dress like that often. I wear a few of my pieces on the show, but typically I just wear jeans and a t-shirt. I’m not a super stylish person myself. 

Richland Source: Why do you think your personal style and the style you enjoy designing are so different?

Todd Fisher: Probably my upbringing. I grew up in a predominantly male family. Everybody played sports. A lot of my siblings and cousins, to this day they’re coaches.

My brother coaches and teaches at Madison. I have a cousin that is a college football coach in Indiana. It’s very like masculine-driven family.

I feel most comfortable not bringing too much attention to my personal style. I’m shy; my horoscope is a Cancer.

From Tyger Nation to the Big Apple

Richland Source: Let’s go back to the beginning. You grew up in Richland County, right?

Todd Fisher: Yeah, I was born and raised in Mansfield. I graduated from Mansfield Senior, ran track from middle school through college.

I got a track scholarship, went to a junior college in Kansas, won a national championship. I was an All-American in track and field. I ran the 400 and 800 meter.

After two years out there, I came back to Ohio and went to the University of Akron to run track there. I tore my hamstring. They told me they were going to drop my scholarship the next year, so I dropped out and moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion.

Richland Source: When did you learn how to sew?

Todd Fisher: My mother was a seamstress. She used to make a lot of our clothes when we were growing up. So she taught me how to sew. I was artistic in high school. I took a lot of art classes.

I’m still really close with my high school art teacher, Mindy Duncan, so it kind of just transformed. I didn’t know it was fashion back then. I just wanted to draw and be creative in that sense. 

When I went to college in Kansas, I was in the middle of nowhere. There was no place to shop. So we would go to JCPenney and I would buy things and alter them when I got back to my dorm room. People saw that and started asking me to do that for them. 

When you graduate from community college, it can be a scary time because a lot of people don’t know what they’re going to do. I didn’t know what I wanted to major in because I didn’t have a major out there. I was studying business, but I wasn’t a business major.

Everybody was like, “You should just study design.” Akron didn’t have a design program. They had a fashion marketing program. So I went and studied marketing. I never studied fashion design, though. I’m self-taught beyond what my mom taught me. 

I ended up doing four years in college but never graduated. I was one semester shy and dropped out and I moved to New York in 2008.

Richland Source: So what happened once you arrived in New York?

Todd Fisher: I’ve had a few industry jobs here in New York City. Starting out, I worked at a factory. We did a bunch of pleating and they did some sewing for clients and stuff like that.

But I lied on my resume and said that I graduated from Fashion Institute of Technology. I never even went to FIT.

I started my business in 2016. My first client ever was Ariana Grande. It was surreal. I reached out to her stylist and she responded immediately.

They asked for a bunch of faux fur coats and she ended up wearing one on national television.

Then they commissioned me to make a bunch of them over the next five or six weeks. I was making her a different coat every week. She wore a couple of them. It’s kind of been non-stop ever since.

Richland Source: So you always kind of had that love of fashion, it was just latent for a while. 

Todd Fisher: Yeah, it took a while to show itself I guess. When I was in high school, I had no inclination whatsoever that I was going to end up in fashion. I wanted to be more on the artistic side, maybe creating cartoon characters. It was more about drawing and painting and sculpture. 

Richland Source: If there’s a kid in Richland County who wants to make a career in fashion, what advice would you give them?

Todd Fisher: Just go for it. It’s not going to be easy. I’ve been in New York for 16 years, plugging away at this and I’m just now starting to feel like I’m making the type of progress I’ve been trying to make. Don’t give up. It’s taken me 16 years to get to this point. 

The longer you do it, the more you’re going to learn about yourself and your design aesthetic. It’s very easy for people to get discouraged early on because you don’t get the results you think you should be getting. You compare yourself to people — at least I did when I was in New York. There were people younger than me getting more of a spotlight.

Don’t compare yourself to people. Be prepared to work super hard. Don’t give up on it, because it takes a while to build a brand.