Stephen Burrows shines bright like a black diamond in history as a fashion treasure

True Crime, Fashion and Passion

Stephen Burrows is a human being with a bright light. He is a treasure of historic proportion in the fashion industry, and nobody knows his passion for fashion more than Fashion and Passion co-host, the legendary supermodel Pat Cleveland. On this episode of True Crime, Fashion, and Passion, we invited Stephen to come share some of his favorite stories with us and oh he did.

Phillip has hung out with Stephen many times and has been a big supporter of his collections and always look forward to his fashion shows. For this episode, Stephen was in rare form and had us laughing through the whole interview...well, when we weren't gasping at some fun little tidbits we learned about Jimi Hendrix, singer Bette Davis, and so many of our other favorite icons of style.

Throughout our conversation, Phillip constantly clutched his pearls and had to shut his mouth as the first African American man to be internationally heralded as a fashion designer. Stephen Burrows has always been a groundbreaker. In the 70s at the height of his career and in the heat of the disco era, he had his own eponymous perfume with the tag line B is for Burrows and Breaking Free & that he did. The world of fashion celebrated his bold, graphic color blocking, innovative use of matte jersey fabric, and his funky and fresh detail of the lettuce-edged hem. In the height of the Disco-era, these were the perfect style staples.

However, trust and believe that as a designer, it's not just your talent and good taste that garner your success. In Stephen's case, his boyish good looks, charm, and personality as vibrant as the colors he used contributed to him becoming a fashion phenomenon and the toast of New York.

The early '70s was a nonstop whirlwind of fabulosity for Stephen. He won three Cody awards and in 1978 earned icon status for dressing the iconic Farrah Fawcett in a groundbreaking gold chainmail dress for the 50th Academy Awards. That is just a few of the highlights of a life well lived in the world of fashion. We hope you will join us for a little laughter, a lot of love, and some lessons in the language of style and fashion.

True Crime, Fashion, and Passion is recorded and edited at DNR Studios in New York, NY. The podcast is hosted by Phillip Bloch, cohosted by Carol Alt and Pat Cleveland. Our Senior Producer is Annie Quaile. Illustrations created by Antonio Contreras. Follow him at @antonioeldeseo on Instagram.

Special thanks to Paul van Ravenstein, Romaine Patterson, Andrew Bagley, and the entire DNR Studios crew. Additional thanks to Vinnie Postestivo. Visit us on the web at truecrimefashionandpassion.com, on Twitter @crimefashionpod and Instagram and Facebook at @TrueCrimeFashionandPassion.