Ricky Rudy Barber Jr. [The Rick]

 

Ricky was born on September 29th, 1989 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His mother is one of his best friends, his father passed away when Ricky was in his teen years, and he is the middle child to two beautiful women. Ricky always knew he wanted to be in the Entertainment industry as a young child who took up acting when he was 12 years old. Starring in as many theater productions as he could for 6 years, he was definitely thinking that acting would be that one thing he'd do forever. After graduating high school, he did not continue with acting due to going to school for Fashion which he had always loved and admired but didn't feel the need to take it further until after doing some soul searching. 

 

As he came out during the year 2008 as an openly Gay man, that was when Ricky was finally unleashed. Attending Burning Man in 2010, he wrote these words that he says were the words that truly started everything for him, "Fashion is a Lifestyle, Change is Now." Not looking back after that, he kept on with that mind set, and not only applied it to his everyday, but truly became that person who was seen as fashionable- first... everything else came second. 

 

Strutting through the non-fashion forward streets of Minneapolis, he quickly became a figure standing up for LGBT rights in the area and as a fashion leader. Photographers would book him for specific projects or just to work with him and have photos for their own personal portfolio. He became a co-creator of a queer arts collective known as The Friction, where he was in charge of creative direction of specific events and he was the Fashion Artist in the collective that was created with people that all had different artistic backgrounds and mediums. That ended after about 2 years once people started to branch out and do their own solo projects.

 

Ricky never had issues with being creative. He started making his own clothing and repurposing items to make them new and exciting again. He had a strong love and connection to using the Cross symbol as one of his go-to's, specifially for how it had potential to cause controversy because of how openly gay he is and that mixture between the church. He has a very religious background on his own- and he believes in a higher power- however the cross symbol brought a sense of power to it, and he would recreate things using it as his muse to gain awareness to others. This task of his that he loved so much, slowly started to become more of a side hobby, due to new focuses.

 

2013 he made the decision to chase his dreams in Hollywood, California. It started out slightly rough at first, got spammed a lot and taken advantaged of...however those experiences pushed him harder to be successful and to create a name for himself. Within a year and a half he made great friends with very important people in the industry from movie producers to celebrities, and then even landing a dream job working for a fashion magazine and as their showroom manager on Melrose. 

 

Now he's hosting events & parties, still networking a ton within the industry, Co-producing fashion shows within the LA area, and literally living his dream. Soon he hopes to be seen on TV more, get back into acting and even write a tell all book about his crazy and hectic life. Stay tuned, and become a fan, this guy wants to eventually become a household name.