Columbia Fashion Week launches new magazine, focus on platforming marginalized creatives

Juliette Mueller grinned from ear to ear. The joy and light she carries isn’t random, and it isn’t smug or self-serving. Mueller is a woman who wins — and she is on a winning streak.

Mueller is the Executive Director of Columbia Fashion Week. She’s the newest board member of the Contemporaries for the Columbia Museum of Art, and she is having early talks with Chef Hector Sanchez of Hampton Street Vineyard to help bring his idea of a Black supper club to life. Simply said, she is booked and busy.

These positions and responsibilities would be enough for most people, but Mueller isn’t most people. She wants more; more for herself and more for creatives of color in Columbia. Mueller recently added another jewel to her crown, a platform that combines her love of fashion with what some would call “platform sharing:” she just launched the COLAFW Experience.

The COLAFW Experience is a bi-annual fashion publication that highlights fashion, beauty, photography and culture. In a lot of ways, the COLAFW Experience is a physical manifestation of the things that make Mueller tick.

Like Mueller, the COLAFW magazine sets out to achieve more than just la platform for local fashion; it serves to highlight those who often are overlooked or underrepresented.

The magazine’s website declares that the magazine “marks a New Era of Fashion in Columbia.” And that is true. The COLAFW Experience is only one issue in, and it’s already doing what other local magazines do not do; they are purposefully highlighting people from marginalized communities. 

Magazines like Columbia Living and Columbia Metropolitan Magazine have been staples in this city for several years, but these magazines would benefit from being more diverse and more reflective of the city and the area.

African Americans make up 49.4 percent of Richland County’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making the demographic the majority in the county. If you zoom in and look at the city, African Americans/Black people make up 40.9% of the city population. In the city of Columbia, however, White people make up 50.7 percent of the population, according to the Census.

But you would think that African Americans had far fewer numbers or lower population percentages if you just looked at the magazine covers of the old-guard publications.

Columbia Metropolitan Magazine’s cover has featured a Black person four times in the past 12 years, according to an analysis of their publication. Three of these covers featured sports or media stars, such as Craig Melvin and A’ja Wilson.

Something positive can be said of featuring well-known people of color, but what about the names and faces we don’t know? Magazines of the past aren’t practiced in the art of discovering and highlighting new talents of color and COLAFW Experience is doing that within their first issue. The first issue of COLAFW Experience has two cover options, featuring models Chris Jared or Carly King. Both Jared and King are Black.

“I had envisioned creating a magazine that highlighted all the creatives on the Columbia fashion platform,” Mueller said. “We do so much work on this platform…we needed a place to house all of that amazing creativity.

Mueller said the magazine is the product of years of work and collaboration.

“It took building an alliance,” she said. “The Columbia alliance is filled with photographers, models, designers, stylists, makeup artists. Those are all the creatives needed to create the magazine.”

And the alliance and support for the COLAFW Experience is strong. Mueller had the launch of the inaugural issue at All Good Books, where dozens of people came out to celebrate the magazine’s launch. (Jared Johnson is a part-owner of All Good Books.)

There is a clear thirst for what Mueller is offering. And it may be due to her putting community, collaboration and diversity into the DNA of her work and the magazine.

When asked to define community and collaboration, Mueller said “it means coming together for one common cause.”

Her definition of community is similar to many other Black creatives in this city and there’s a bigger conversation to be had about the dynamic energy that she and others are bringing to Columbia.

There is something happening as it relates to culture and how many are choosing to take back control of the culture scene and create their own platforms. It’s no longer about the old, it’s about the new — and Mueller and her new magazine have the city’s full attention.