Stephanie London was born in Orlando, Florida, in 1976, and grew up in Wichita, Kansas. While in high school she found an interest in painting. After spending a couple of years teaching herself to paint, she went on to graduate from the University of Kansas with a Bachelors of Fine Arts, Painting, in 2000.

While exploring the combination of color, line, and texture at the university, Stephanie found an interest in designing women's dress as her imagery. The next natural step was then to continue her studies, so, Stephanie moved to New York City in 2001, and studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Several months after completing her studies, she was making a routine visit to the roof of her building to read; however, she slipped and suffered a life threatening 5-story fall off the fire escape of her building. After spending several weeks in the hospital, Stephanie then returned to Kansas for her recovery.

During her more than 15 months of recovery, Stephanie came up with the idea of capturing a dress that has become special to the woman who wore it. Stephanie delights in creating paintings with rich textures, fabrics, and beads to capture the beauty of a brides' wedding gown. Her work is represented by some of the bridal industries top names, such as, Kleinfeld Bridal, Bridal Bar, and Get Married.

Currently, Stephanie is continuing to paint gowns, design gowns, and pursue her studio practice through creating a series of paintings with regard to femininity, beauty and sex trafficking. In 2010, Stephanie began designing a line of wedding gowns. The heart and soul behind these gowns is to donate proceeds to organizations rescuing and rehabilitating women caught in the sex trafficking industry. This vision led to the launch of the Stephanie London Foundation where Stephanie also works to advocate and fundraise on behalf of the anti-sex trafficking movement.

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In 2011, the Stephanie London Foundation was established after seeing the world wide need for a unified stand against sex trafficking. As this multibillion dollar industry continues to succeed in destroying human lives, the need has arisen for funding to rescue and rehabilitate the victims. Organizations working to free victims find themselves isolated and up against inadequate funding, low public awareness, and tough legal issues. The Stephanie London Foundation is designed to unify the fight by providing for the needs of these organizations while advocating and partnering with them in the stand against sex trafficking.

Support the world wide fight against sex trafficking, join us by visiting www.stephanielondonfoundation.org and like the Stephanie London Foundation on Facebook.

Gown Reflections

The inspiration for painting wedding gowns actually began from a life-altering accident I experienced in March, 2003. Here is the story that has led me to capture the most profound glimpse of beauty that most women will ever behold, their wedding day.

I had been in the hospital for almost a week after falling 5-stories off the fire escape of my apartment building. I felt completely raw, exposed, and vulnerable. Up until this time I didn't realize how important it was to me to feel beautiful, but I was consciously uncomfortable at times of how exposed I was. Then, 6 days into my hospital stay a dear friend came to visit me. She brought a bag full of goodies— those little things we take for granted, like having a hairbrush . She then pulled out a razor, and proceeded to shave my legs. What a humbling experience! In the midst of all that had gone on that week she took the time to recognize the little details, and it truly touched my heart. She validated all the desires I had to feel beautiful even in the midst of such great trauma. With pink nail polish in hand, she then continued by giving me a pedicure. Now, I wasn't one of those girls who liked pink, at least not since I was five. However, this would forever change my view of beauty, of pink, and of femininity. For the next two weeks as I laid in that hospital bed, what stared back at me, peeking out from the end of my bed sheets, my pretty pink toes. It brought such delight to my heart and I realized it helped to fulfill my desire for beauty.

It was now the spring of 2004, one year later. I was still struggling to recover from the accident and rebuild my life. One day I was in conversation with a friend, we were talking about the dresses I had been drawing for years and what great dresses little girls wear. "Why don't you draw their special dresses for them", she said to me. Over the next several days as I thought about our conversation, and it came to me that the ultimate dress for every little girl and most every woman was the same. . . Her wedding gown, an outward expression of all the love and beauty a bride holds in her heart. And so, with each gown painting or drawing I am privileged to create, I am sharing a piece of the difficult, strange, and yet amazing journey of beauty overcoming brokenness, and loss.

Ever since the accident, beauty helps. It has become so important because beauty possesses an ability to heal. It just speaks something to my heart that I need to hear, to feel, to know. Beauty speaks to the truth hidden deep inside each of our hearts; we were made for this - to be made whole through its perfection. When we encounter beauty by watching a sunset, walking on the beach, gazing at the snow fall, or witnessing a bride walk the aisle to be joined with her beloved; each time we experience a bit of beauty it is like getting a glimpse of heaven and our hearts recognize that they are home.