Ashley Balding, an adjunct instructor in the O’More School of Design at Belmont, an O’More alumna and the owner and designer for Ona Rex, was recently featured in an article published by Nashville Design Week. The article includes interviews with five artists from the Nashville area.
In her feature, Nashville native Balding discusses her line of luxury women’s wear, how her design practice began, her biggest areas of influence and more. A science fiction lover, Balding points to the genre as some of her biggest influences. “It probably plays into the part of my brain that likes science, and the part that likes weird,” she said in the article. “I get excited about fantasy worlds and outer space. I think there’s something exciting about futuristic things. Aliens, creatures, monsters…There’s just something about the human form in a completely different, abstract view.”
Recently, Balding has been nominated for two NFA Honors including Women’s Wear Designer and Creative Collaboration with fashion photographer Brett Warren, and she was named Women’s Wear Designer of the Year in 2017.
The piece goes on to feature Belmont alumna Elizabeth Williams and her business partner Kelly Diehl for New Hat, their custom wallpaper design project.
To read the article in its entirety, click here.
