Baltimore teen creates bold life in fashion

Growing up in inner city Baltimore taught 18-year-old Bishme Cromartie a couple life lessons.

“You have to be ready and be quick and know your surroundings,” he says of a childhood engulfed by “the temptations of gangs.”

Lesson No. 2: Don’t ask why.

“When I realized that my father was not going to be around, I just told myself to forget about it. I would be the man of the family and help provide for them,” he tells The Washington Times without a hint of resentment.

Since his first fashion show at age 16, Mr. Cromartie has defied his youth and underprivileged background to launch a precocious career as a designer that has garnered the attention of Washington and New York style-industry insiders.

“Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe that my brother is doing this,” says Mr. Cromartie’s older sister Chimere Didley, who grew up with him in Baltimore. “It is so refreshing that he looked at his surroundings and told himself that he did not have to be like so many kids from the streets. I am so happy I don’t have to run to a detention center to get him or that the cops have my address memorized.”

(Corrected paragraph:) When Mr. Cromartie was 12, his mother, Regina Didley, a nurse, sent him to live with relatives in Newburgh, N.Y., to attend a better school and be in a safer environment.

It was while staying with his aunts that he met his destiny. “I saw her making quilts and bedspreads, and all I wanted to do was sew,” Mr. Cromartie recalls.

Quickly learning to sew by hand, his first client was his favorite G.I. Joe action figure. “I would get in trouble for cutting up my socks to make shirts for him,” he says.

When he returned to Baltimore, his mother and sister, who do not sew at all, were amused by his interest, and thought it would keep him from straying onto the wrong path. That Christmas, they saved enough money to buy Mr. Cromartie a sewing machine, but he kept his new toy and budding hobby to himself.

“You don’t want to tell the other boys that you sew because you might get beaten up,” he says.

Quietly, he examined the skirts and blouses of his female friends and relatives to learn how clothes are made and taught himself to use the sewing machine and to make clothes without patterns.

“I made my first shirt when I was around thirteen,” he says. “One arm was longer than the other, but I was so proud because it was something I had made all by myself.”

Wanting to make clothes for friends, but apprehensive about how his male peers would react, Mr. Cromartie designed hoodies, casual sweatshirts popular among young rap and R&B artists.

Suddenly, Mr. Cromartie became the Alexander McQueen of his school.

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