Stylish survivor
Houston native defies odds on the catwalk
The chance to become a runway model seemed far away to Deborah Grayson Carpenter.
It wasn’t until she saw a model with disabilities on Facebook — Shaholly Ayers, a congenital amputee who walked the runway at New York Fashion Week — that Grayson Carpenter realized it was a possibility.
Since then, she has been a contestant in the Ms. Wheelchair Texas Pageant, has appeared on the Houston Fashion Week runway three times and has become a brand ambassador for local designer Kimma Wreh of TeKay Designs. She and Wreh started the nonprofit KDE Disability Africa Foundation to help empower people with disabilities in Africa and the United States.
The 49-year-old Houston native was diagnosed at 6 months with spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative muscular disease that impacts a person’s ability to walk, eat and breathe. She was expected to live only to age 2.
“I’m not supposed to be here, but I am,” she said.
Grayson Carpenter was home-schooled for first through ninth grades, then she attended McCullough Senior High School. She could attend only during non-flu seasons because of her compromised immune system. After graduating in 1986, she attended the University of Houston for several years and lived on campus with a personal caregiver.
At 22, she went to work as a reservation agent at Continental Airlines and remained there for 16 years. About the same time, she met her husband, Larry Carpenter, at a showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
“I never thought I would ever get married,” she said. “I wasn’t the most datable, given my condition, but we started going to the movies together, and he was so attentive.”
They were married at First Baptist Church in The Woodlands. Carpenter wore a “Cinderella” wedding dress made by her grandmother.
Today, Grayson Carpenter is working on a career in fashion, but she knows the challenges are huge.
“Most people with disabilities are on fixed incomes,” she said. “They can’t afford to travel to the shows and have their hair and makeup done. So we have to get sponsors to help us continue.”
She still hopes to make it to New York Fashion Week one day.
“For me to get to New York and maintain my health will be a huge thing,” she said. “I’ll be risking catching something in an environment I’ve never been to. But I want to do it.”