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Cleveland fashion designer rising to live without her 'mask'

In 2010 Cleveland Fashion Designer Stephanie Nunn revealed in a newspaper article that she’s legally blind and spent all of her life hiding her lack of vision from almost everyone she knew.

CLEVELAND -- Masks are meant to conceal, hiding from the world what’s underneath.

Masks are also meant to be removed.

That’s the lesson west side fashion designer Stephanie Nunn is learning to embrace.

In 2010 Nunn revealed in a newspaper article that she’s legally blind and spent all of her life hiding her lack of vision from almost everyone she knew. She was born with a degenerative eye disease and told she would be blind by the age of six.

LIVING BEHIND A MASK

Because of being teased as a youth for wearing what she calls “pop bottle” glasses to correct her vision, Nunn swore off wearing the glasses in public.

“The mask was walking around visually impaired trying to live in a sighted world,” says Nunn. “It became a lifestyle.”

Nunn picked up crocheting as a child and turned to it after leaving an abusive relationship as a young adult. She went on to create a fashion line called the Nadira Collection while working full time.

She won multiple awards for her work, but never disclosed to her clients or her friends the challenges she faced due to her declining vision.

“She’s very strong, very independent,” says Nunn’s client turned friend Nicky Miller. “You can’t tell that she’s visually impaired until she lets you know.”

CRACKS IN THE MASK

“I interviewed for jobs that knew nothing about my visual impairment,” says Nunn. “I got all the way to working in a wonderful environment at the Cleveland Clinic and the exposure began to happen. It became a problem with getting the job done.”

With the support of her husband, Nunn left her job at the Cleveland Clinic in 2014. A move she says initially left her depressed.

“It was hard for me to come home and see my wife in tears,” says husband Michael Nunn. “Any time you have any type of success, you’re going to have failures somewhere along the line which teaches you to have the character to overcome those failures.”

REMOVING THE MASK TO HELP OTHERS

A former colleague at the Clinic recommended Nunn for a volunteer position with the nonprofit Prevent Blindness. She is now on the board.

“If she can share her story she can help so many people who may be in a similar situation,” says Prevent Blindness Chapter Director Darcy Downie. “She’s such an awesome woman and she doesn’t know that.”

Nunn admits she still struggles to allow people to see her "flaw." She becomes emotional when asked about the newspaper article that began her journey to transparency and healing. It is her friends and family that give her the strength to excel in her perceived weakness.

“Despite the circumstances, despite the challenges, just do what you can do,” says Nunn. “I say if I can get my foot out of the bed, it’s on.”

Nunn now designs fulltime. She hosts an annual charity fashion show featuring her creations and the designs of others. A portion of the proceeds from the event are donated to Prevent Blindness to help fund programs and services in Northeast Ohio for people who cannot afford vision care.

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