BIOGRAPHY

Johnathan Kayne Gillaspie was born March 14, 1979 in Nashville, Ten­nessee. Grow­ing up in a large fam­ily — five sis­ters and two broth­ers — he real­ized at a young age the impor­tance of stand­ing out. Kayne grad­u­ated from Beech High School and began col­lege at Vol­un­teer State Col­lege with a full aca­d­e­mic schol­ar­ship, plan­ning to become a vet­eri­nar­ian. Dur­ing this time he took a job as a sketch artist for a local pageant bou­tique in Nashville, and became totally enam­ored with fashion.

Kayne trans­ferred to the Fash­ion Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy in New York City, grad­u­at­ing Magna Cum Laude in 2002 and win­ning the crit­ics choice for evening wear. Fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion he opened Kayne’s Cloth­ing Bou­tique back home in Nashville, which afforded him the oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate cus­tom ball­room dance cos­tumes, evening wear, and wardrobe for the coun­try music industry.

In 2003 Kayne became part­ners in South­ern Charm/Alter Ego, an estab­lished for­mal wear and pageant store in Nor­man, Okla­homa. Within three years, his suc­cess in the pageant indus­try soared. In Decem­ber of 2005, he dressed the entire top five teens and the win­ner and first run­ner up in the Miss Okla­homa U.S.A. Pageant.

In May 2006 Kayne was cho­sen to com­pete on the hit Bravo TV Show Project Run­way Sea­son 3. He was very excited to be on the show and almost made it to the finals. One of the chal­lenges dur­ing the show was to design a gown for the reign­ing Miss USA to wear when she com­peted in the Miss Uni­verse Pageant. Kayne won this chal­lenge and Tara Con­ner was wear­ing the gown he cre­ated when she became fourth run­ner up to Miss Uni­verse later that year.

Since com­ing home from Project Run­way Sea­son 3 life has been hec­tic. Kayne has estab­lished a Johnathan Kayne Shoe Line pro­duced by the Ben­jamin Walk Cor­po­ra­tion in New Hamp­shire and the Johnathan Kayne Pageant and Prom Retail Line pro­duced by WOW Prom and Pageant in Atlanta, GA. In the sum­mer of 2009 Kayne and his staff were fea­tured on the TLC sum­mer spe­cial GOWN CRAZY.

The Johnathan Kayne Design Stu­dio is located in Nor­man, Okla­homa where Kayne also main­tains his cor­po­rate offices. At this loca­tion Johnathan Kayne cre­ates stun­ning cus­tom gowns for clients around the world and from all walks of life. He trav­els across the nation mak­ing appear­ances on behalf of a num­ber of char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions and doing trunk shows at his retail stores.

Kayne is the process of devel­op­ing two new lines that will be avail­able on his web site by fall 2010. Kayne9 dog cou­ture and Judith Kaye. Kayne9 is obvi­ously a cou­ture line for dogs and Judith Kaye is a line of for­mal wear for the more mature woman. It is named for his mother Judith Kaye Smith who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kayne is the National Spokesper­son for IT’S MY PROM which is a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion pro­mot­ing safe choices dur­ing prom sea­son. He is a found­ing mem­ber of the 4 HEALTHY KIDS orga­ni­za­tion which is active in the Nor­man ele­men­tary school sys­tem and pro­motes healthy life styles in chil­dren. Kayne works tire­lessly for the Amer­i­can Can­cer Asso­ci­a­tion and the Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion. His newest endeavor is the estab­lish­ment of OKC FASHION WEEK which should make its appear­ance in spring 2011.