LaDoris Burton is a lot of things – entrepreneur, fashion designer and seamstress extraordinaire, to name a few. However, she isn’t new to being the subject of a story. In 2019, The Pueblo Chieftain ran a story about Burton under the headline “Just a Girl Building an Empire,” which detailed Burton’s goal of growing her fashion design studio after winning the Southern Colorado Entrepreneur’s Competition. The competition, which provided the winner with funds to grow her business, was Pueblo’s version of the popular TV show Shark Tank. Burton, who says she began sewing at age seven, had a vision for fashion in 2019, and she has a vision for fashion in 2025. The difference today? Designs by LaDoris is now located in Colorado Springs.
In the back of the Men’s Exchange, a social impact clothing store (4156 Centennial Ave.), LaDoris Burton has a private office with two sewing machines, racks of dresses in various stages of design and designer handbags Burton has fashioned from recycled items like Levis jeans.
The handbags may be off the rack during business hours; Burton also does custom sewing and alterations.
Although Burton has experience fitting and altering both gowns and men’s suits, she says creating handbags is currently her favorite part of sewing. While the art of sewing is truly where her heart is filled, the skill of sewing is the foundation upon which Burton built her career.
“My mom had four girls and one boy,” Burton says. “She made most of our clothes. We sewed out of necessity.”
At age seven, Burton regularly took her mother’s sewing machine out of storage and set it up in the living room of their Buffalo, New York residence.
“I made my first garment at eight years old. By this time, I was sewing for all my sisters,” she says, happily adding, “I sewed a jumper for my baby sister. I remember that the most.”
There wasn’t a teacher to help develop Burton’s passion until she was a tween.
“When I turned 12,” she remembers, “my dad entered my world. He paid for me to take classes in dress making and pattern making.” As an eighth grader, Burton shares, she sewed a red jumper and an entire suit while the other kids made aprons. From the very beginning, Burton taught herself how to use a sewing machine and make garments either with or without a pattern.
Early in her career, Buffalo provided a stable home to Burton and her growing seamstress business. Like her own mother, Burton became a single mom. She raised her only son, Antwon Burton, in New York. If his name sounds familiar, you just might be from Colorado. Antwon Burton went on to play defensive tackle for the Denver Broncos. When he retired from the NFL, making his home in Pueblo, Colorado, Momma Burton soon followed. She pulled up her East Coast roots and moved to Colorado, where she became a hands-on grandmother. Still, her commitment to sewing remained strong.
Pueblo West was the location of Burton’s first Colorado-based design business.Today, Designs by LaDoris has only the Colorado Springs location. What project is at the top of her current agenda? A one-of-a-kind wedding gown for longtime client Arrhea Salas, whose wedding is this summer. Burton shares, proudly, “I’ve altered prom dresses and other things for Arrhea. We started working together when she was in high school.”
What LaDoris does is an art. – Arrhea Salas
Salas agrees, “I’ve worked with LaDoris since I was a teenager. She doesn’t try to sell me on her ideas. She listens.”
The bride-to-be showed Burton inspirational pictures for her wedding gown, which Salas clipped from bridal magazines. This gown has no pattern, which worries neither Burton nor Salas in the least.
“LaDoris helped me choose and order my fabric,” Salas explains, revealing she didn’t originally know there was a difference between silk and satin. The wedding gown will be made of white satin, with a slit on each side and a detachable train.
“What LaDoris does is an art,” Salas declares. “And she definitely has a big passion for it.”
Teaching a new generation of industrially trained sewing machine operators is Burton’s way of bringing her passion for her art into the present. She is a certified apprenticeship instructor. Within the program, Burton instructs her students one-on-one in basic sewing and alterations. For details on the possibility of becoming one of Burton’s proteges, please call 719-654-6641.
Combining art with good business is just the balance Burton desires. Her work as a seamstress enables the visionary to fulfill her passion for design. Providing alterations, though, honors her history of sewing out of necessity. When Burton was born in the early 1960s, American women couldn’t open a bank account without first providing a husband’s signature. In 2025, however, Burton is a single black woman who both owns her own business and brings to life the material vision of her clients. Designs by LaDoris is iconic, continuing to press the boundaries of the art of sewing with the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder.
