From Student to Intern to Designer

Fashion

Summary

Apparel Construction • Couture • Fashion Illustration • Visual Merchandising • Fashion Marketing & Management • Retail • Styling

History.

As a child, I always held a special place in my heart for the fashion industry. From dressing up dolls in my designs to flipping through Vogue for hours, the thought of being able to design and create something that resonates so strongly with people intrigued me to my core.

Throughout high school, I constantly created artwork that incorporated either fashion illustrations or some aspect of the industry.

When it came time to choose a university, I decided on The University of Texas at Austin and spent my first year pursuing International Relations and Global Studies; culture studies being another topic that greatly intrigues me. Halfway through my first year in Austin, I befriended my RA who told me she was pursuing a degree in apparel design, a possibility I had no idea existed. I immediately changed my major to Apparel Design & Retail Merchandising and endeavored to learn as much as I could; whether that be my time spent as a design student or from interning with experienced fashion designer, Sergio Guadarrama at Celestino.

Visual Merchandising

A window display for Luke’s Locker, designed with a playwright’s point of view.

Fashion Illustration

In the duration of my time as a design student, another memorable challenge for me was an assignment to recreate an illustration from a prominent fashion illustrator or designer. I chose an abstract illustration by Christian Dior as opposed to a more mainstream piece; I’ve always been one to challenge myself to see if I can accomplish what some might think difficult or atypical. I spent hours attempting to get the angles and colors just right.

Walking into class on the day of presenting our creations, I looked at my duplicate illustration thinking of ways I could have made it a little more “perfect”. Angle it here a little more…perhaps a bit deeper color there. Turns out, my illustration was the closest to the original piece and was chosen as the top of the class! It seems as though my strategic risk for ‘thinking different’ paid off after all.