Eclectic fashion and art stir his soul
Alex Chapman has such a connection to his stylish things that he affectionately calls them his “children.”
His quaint Midtown-bungalow is bursting with pieces from around the world and art from Africa, seashells from his native Philippines, paintings from renowned Houston artists such as Matt Messinger, and racks and racks of vintage clothing from eBay, of all places.
Not a day goes by that Chapman isn’t scouring the online shopping site for a deal.
“I’m literally on eBay every 30 minutes,” said Chapman, 49, a professor in Houston Community College’s fashion-design program. “I’m obsessed with getting something for nothing. I don’t have to be the first to have it, but if it’s something I like, I have to have it.”
Chapman is like millions of shoppers worldwide who turn to eBay for deals. According to Statista.com, eBay reached 177 million active users in the third quarter of 2018, after surpassing 175 million active users in the previous quarter. Harper’s Bazaar and other fashion magazines have even featured articles on how to buy vintage clothes off eBay, guiding readers on how to decipher the fakes from the authentic brands.
It helps that Chapman knows his stuff. He can spot a fake with quickness, rattle off the history of each designer and tell you exactly why he’s a fan.
He collects Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçon and Issye Miyake, for starters. Yet of all of the hundreds of pieces of women’s clothing he owns, it’s the vintage 1996 dress by Miyake and designer Yasumasa Morimura that’s his most coveted item. He’s been trying to acquire it for 20 years and found the dress on eBay five years ago.
With Miyake, Chapman explained it’s the designer’s sculptural and amorphic shapes that captivate him. With Gaultier, Chapman said it’s because the French designer is the “bad boy” of street fashion. Yamamoto’s monastic concepts make his collections golden to Chapman, and Comme des Garçon designer Rei Kawakubo reinvents herself with each new collection.
Chapman’s first piece, which he still owns, was an Issey Miyake tie-dye, three-piece ensemble that he purchased in 1988 from a resale shop on West Gray. His most expensive purchase is a Miyake shirt he bought on eBay for $600 and sold for $3,000.
Over the years, he made money reselling pieces from his collection, but it always went back into collecting more. Today, Chapman no longer sells his prized pieces but instead admires them lovingly as he strolls the house he shares with partner David Diehl, a director at Houston Community College.
In a guest bedroom, the clothes are grouped on hanging racks according to the designer and are protected with plastic garment bags. Chapman knows where each designer piece is, when he bought it and often how much he paid.
“I collect for the art of it,” he said. “I appreciate the workmanship and craftsmanship of each piece.”
Born in the Philippines, Chapman and his family moved to California in 1974 after martial law was imposed on the country. He’s the youngest of eight children, and his four oldest siblings, who were 18 and older at the time, remained there.
His family relocated to Houston at the encouragement of a relative. Both of his parents got jobs at the University of Houston and raised Chapman and his siblings in the nearby University Oaks area. After graduating from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, he earned an associate’s degree in fashion design from HCC and later a bachelor’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Chapman returned to Houston after graduation with no real plan, so when Kay King, the former head of HCC’s fashion program, called him out of the blue to ask him to teach a fashion-sketching class, he took it. In 2010, he became a full professor.
“The students keep me young,” Chapman said. “I’m blown away by them because some of them didn’t know how to thread a needle when they took their first class. Now, they can sew on leather, drape a gown and ice-dye fabric. When you see their growth, it’s incredible.”
On Friday evening, a dozen design graduates from the fashion programs at HCC and the Houston Art Institute will showcase their work at the Houston Designers’ Platform at Sabine Street Studios. (It’s a project by Houston designer and Project Runway winner Chloe Dao and me to give emerging designers a platform to show their work in front of a local audience.)
Mo Lamilisa, 37, a style adviser at Saks Fifth Avenue Galleria, is one of those students. A native of Nigeria, Lamilisa knew nothing about sewing when she signed up for Chapman’s class. Even though she lagged behind, he continued to encourage her.
“He saw my skill beyond my speed. He is a motivator. I actually made an A in the class, and I’m very proficient now,” Lamilisa said.
She was also impressed with Chapman’s knowledge about Africa and African art. “He knows almost everything about Africa, things I didn’t even know myself,” she said.
Chalk that up to Chapman’s ability to dive head first into everything he collects, including African art and those seashells. He has thousands of shells and even belongs to a local shell club.
He credits his father with the interest. Chapman’s dad loved seashells so much he wanted to purchase four specific rare shells when he retired, but he died in 1996 from cancer before he could. His parents also had hoped to move to Cancun, Mexico, after retirement, so his father had collected some 365 polo shirts that he planned to wear there. Tragically, Chapman’s mother died in a car accident in 2006.
For that reason, Chapman said he lives his life to the fullest and has an active bucket list whose items he checks off regularly. On his dining-room table, Chapman displayed the four shells his father had wanted. He purchased them on eBay.
“My parents had dreams and things they wanted to do, but they died before they could,” he said. “That’s why I don’t want to wait for the end of my life to enjoy the things that make me happy.”