Wilds sewing Crimsonette uniforms for 32 years

By Luke Brantley
Staff writer
BRILLIANT — If you watched an Alabama Crimson Tide football game on TV this past season, or any season over the last few decades, then you’ve probably seen the work of Sheryl Wilds show up on screen.
Wilds, who lives near Brilliant and grew up there, has been sewing Alabama’s Crimsonette and Color Guard costumes for 32 years.
“I started in ‘92,” Wilds said. “I do all of the glitzy stuff that’s on the field, which is the majorettes and color guard, which is around 70-something girls. When you see the halftime show, that’s all of my work there.”
Wilds has also done costumes and uniforms for Auburn, the University of North Alabama, the University of West Alabama, Troy University, Mississippi State University, the University of Central Florida, Florida State University, the University of Oklahoma and more over the years.
Wilds said she has always had a love for sewing that began when she was very young.
“My mom was a seamstress and always made all of our clothes, and I was very interested in sewing,” she said. “They used to give good home-economics classes in the schools, and I enjoyed that class.
“I learned to make my first apron and then a dress, and so that’s when I got started. My mom kind of gave me free reign with the sewing machine. She worked at the plant, so I’d get on that sewing machine and try to teach myself. Even as a teenager, I was making dresses for myself and for her, both.
“So I started sewing real young, and I opened the fabric shop in 1970 and sewed for people out of that shop in the Town of Brilliant until we built the shop by my house.
“I mostly sewed and made clothes for locals until I decided I needed to get into more specialty sewing to really make a good living, and so I started making cheerleader and majorette uniforms for the county girls like Winfield and Hamilton.”
It would be one of those majorettes who opened up a big opportunity for Wilds.
“And then one of my customers from Winfield who was a majorette—I had made her majorette outfit since she had been in the ninth grade—went to Alabama and made Crimsonette and ended up being a Crimsonette for six years there,” she said. “The Crimsonettes each year have to get tryout uniforms made, or rent them, because when they have their big tryouts, they have beautiful costumes to try out in, and I did her costume for that.
“The band director—who was a lady at that time, Mrs. Kathryn Scott—she liked her uniforms that I was making, and she asked her where she got her uniform. She told her, ‘Well, I have a seamstress back home who’s been making my stuff since I was in the ninth grade.’