Inspiring Lives Magazine Spring 2017: Issue 4 | Page 90
KIYA TOMLIN
Designer Creates Sophisticated Uptown Style
That Can Handle Whatever Your Day Brings
by Jen Forsyth
90
INSPIRING LIVES
SPRING 2017
lege of Design, Art, and Ar-
chitectural Planning. While
she didn’t graduate, she was
able to take the core classes
she needed, tuition-free, for
two years until the Tomlin
family moved to Tampa, Fla.,
for Mike’s first NFL job. Kiya
had looked into other schools,
but since college was no lon-
ger free and the couple had
recently had their first child,
she decided to concentrate on
Kiya Tomlin
actual design.
“So I just started making stuff,” Tomlin remembered.
“I did baby stuff, and I just loved to do it, so I would do it
for free. Probably after the third free wedding gown my
husband was like ‘You will not do another free thing!’”
Tomlin laughed. “So I was forced to start a business.”
Tomlin started a business making wedding gowns in
2000. She kept that going for about two years, but the
stress of designing wedding dresses was compounded
after the arrival of the Tomlin’s second child. Not long
after, the family moved to Minnesota for another NFL
job, and their third child arrived. Then the Steelers’ head
coaching job brought the Tomlins to Pittsburgh, Pa., a
decade ago. Tomlin was busy for quite some time just
being a mom to three young children, but as they grew
older, she realized she wanted something for herself.
“After we moved to Pittsburgh, I kind of put it aside
for a little bit because I had three kids in a new city, and a
new lifestyle with Mike being more in the public eye and,
you know, tending to the kids. Then after my last one was
getting ready for kindergarten, I started looking around
like ‘What am I going to do with myself? You know, it’s
time to start doing what I want to do.’”
So she decided to get back into design “just lightly. It
will give me something to do. Something to focus on, and
then by the time the kids are grown and ready to go off to
college, I’ll jump in full-time and full-force. I guess I was
preparing for the empty nest. I had a lot of people around
me at my husband’s job who were much older than us,
empty nesters…The husbands work so much [coaching],
K
iya Tomlin was born to be a designer.
The New Jersey native has tried many dif-
ferent things, other things she felt at times she
“should” be doing rather than something that
she wanted, but ultimately, fate put her in the place that
made her the happiest.
The owner of Pittsburgh-based Uptown Sweats re-
counted the long road that brought her to owning her
own fashion line and retail store.
“I started sewing and designing when I was 11. Nobody
else in my family sewed or designed or even cared about
fashion, but I had this interest in it. So I got a sewing
machine, and my mom dusted off her eighth grade home
economics knowledge and taught me how to use it, and
we did one project together: a little mallard [stuffed
duck]. After that I was like, ‘I want to do a jumpsuit!’ So
I’ve been making clothes ever since.”
Tomlin quickly went from pattern books to forcing
her own images together. She eventually attended design
school at the University of Cincinnati’s College of De-
sign, Architecture, Art, and Planning (Cincinnati, Oh.),
but that was only after she got back on track from a de-
tour in her design path.
“I went to college on a pre-med scholarship to William
and Mary (Williamsburg, Va.). So when I went to design
school, that was my second round of school. I already had
an undergraduate degree. When I got married right out
of college, I decided not to go the med school route. I’m
not really sure why. It didn’t fit into the life we were living
at the time.”
“So I still designed and did stuff on my own. When
my aunt had breast cancer and lymphedema, her arms
swelled really big. So I did a fashion show for patients
with lymphedema, and I made stuff for them because
they couldn’t buy.”
“We were living in Arkansas at the time, and my hus-
band [Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin] was
coaching at the University of Arkansas in this really little
tiny town of Jonesboro, only 50,000 people. I was having
a hard time fitting in and finding something to do.”
It was then that Tomlin began researching design
schools. When her husband was hired as a coach at the
University of Cincinnati, she was able to attend their Col-