Before he signed on to make a documentary about him, Ryon Horne didn’t know who Patrick Kelly was. But, as soon as he saw him, he began to realize he’d seen his influence everywhere through the ‘80s and ‘90s. His bicycle hats, his overalls, his colorful way of presenting himself – you could see it in everything from Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”
“As soon as I saw a picture of Patrick, I immediately connected a couple of things to him and his look and how he presented himself,” Horne said.
Alone with his two brothers Byron and Tyson Horne (collectively known as the Horne Brothers), Ryon Horne directed the new film “Love, Patrick: Nothing is Impossible,” which is playing at this year’s Out on Film festival on Oct. 2. The documentary tracks the astronomical rise of Kelly as a fashion designer, from his roots in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to the height of his career in Paris, France.
Kelly elevated the fashion of the South – particularly, the fashion of southern, Black, church-going women – to an international stage, combining its color and exuberance with the world of high fashion.
“Whether it was all the colors on the runway, whether it was the free spirited suits that he had models wear that resembled church mothers on Sundays, whether it was having the majority of his models be women of color and all-figured women – all those things stood out to me about Patrick right away,” Horne said.
Kelly was the first American to be admitted to the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter, the governing body for the French fashion industry. But, at the height of his fame, he died from complications of AIDS on New Year’s Day in 1990. He was 35 years old.
Plenty of artistic greats who die young and tragically are remembered. But despite all he achieved in his short career, Kelly has been a bit lost to time. He remains remarkably influential, but if you asked most people outside of the fashion world who he is, they, like Horne, probably wouldn’t know. For Horne and his brothers, it felt like a story that fit right into their wheelhouse. With many of their projects, like “The South Got Something to Say” and “The Dancer,” they try to focus on giving a voice to the voiceless.
“This is what the discovery of history is all about, and preservation, and why it’s so important,” Horne said. “There are so many great stories in our history, whether domestic or abroad, that we as Americans, we as Black folk in America, should always preserve and tell as we go on.”
Executive producers Ray Cornelius and Jessica L. Manning originally brought the idea for the documentary to the brothers in 2019, said Horne. But initially, they didn’t have the time to commit. So Cornelius and Manning continued to follow the project on their own.
“That didn’t stop Ray and Jess from really pursuing the story,” Horne said. “They started doing interviews with various people who knew Patrick, who were with Patrick, who worked with Patrick, who were inspired by him.”
At the start of 2025, the Horne brothers finally came on in earnest. Cornelius and Manning had already done a boatload of work and research, such as talking to Bjorn Amelan, Kelly’s romantic partner from the time, and gathering information on Kelly’s connection to Atlanta, where his career originally kicked off. But Horne said he and his brothers also wanted to focus on Kelly’s time in Paris, where he spent the bulk of his professional life.
“We knew that we couldn’t tell the story unless we went to Paris, unless we stepped foot on the same streets that he worked on, that he walked, and that he spent time on,” Horne said.
Horne said another idea they had was to make Cornelius, Manning, and their journey part of the fabric of the documentary. In the documentary, we see them traveling to places like the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, to Kelly’s hometown of Vicksburg, to his gravesite in Paris.
“We had to see them discover all these incredible things about Patrick,” Horne said. “I think that idea, that vision, that discovery, really inspired Jess and Ray to really trust us to tell the story.”
The documentary features a plethora of people who worked with Kelly and knew him, along with those who are simply inspired by his work. Despite the fact that his name might not be quite as well known today as it once was, it’s clear his impact has not lessened – both professionally and on a personal level.
“Everybody has a different story about him,” Horne said. “It’s the same personality, but they have a different connection to him. Everyone has a different connection to Patrick Kelly.”
