How I Got Into Fashion Design

I originally entered the fashion industry as a runaway model when I was nine years old. I had always been told “You’re so tall and skinny, you should be a model.” So I did. My mom drove me to the casting and I was signed with an agency the same day. My contract was for 6 years and I was placed as a runway model due to that same height and stature. Due to my age, I was offered a youth contract, which required updated measurements and upkeep of a comp card quite regularly.

As a model, the industry has a certain set of standards that you must adhere to such as height, BMI, and specific measurements for different types of modeling. For example, one type of modeling is called “Fit Models” and their whole job requires trying on certain sized clothing such as an exact small, medium, large, etc. These models are cast by their body measurements alone in order to try on specific sized clothing for true sizing. Another example is runway modeling. As a runway model who is female there is a base standard of Five foot Nine inches tall at the shortest and getting taller from there. This was, of course, the standard of the fashion industry in the early 2000’s. 

I went through training to become a runaway model and I walked for many high end designer houses for six years of my childhood. When the time came for my contract renewal when I turned fifteen - I had to get all of my measurements taken, including my height, in order to make sure that I was still within the restrictions of my upcoming contract. On that day and to this day, I stand five foot and eight and a half inches tall. That was the day that my career in the modeling world came to a halt and ended. The industry that raised me and groomed me and trained me quickly turned their back on me and dropped me like they never knew who I was in the first place. Little did I know at the time, this would play a big role in my decision to create the current fashion brand that I have today.

After six years in the deep end of the fashion industry I watched innumerable, beautiful people be turned away from agencies, designers, directors, and more for not being enough. Whether it be pretty enough, tall enough, skinny enough, Fill In The Blank enough. It broke my heart, even as a child, to watch the dreams of others dissipate before my very eyes and know that I was given this opportunity for things that weren’t even in my control. Pure genetics landed me dream jobs others had fascinated about. Between this circumstance and the realization that I became one of those very same people the day my modeling contract was rejected due to my half of an inch height difference- a passion grew inside of me to justify a right that I never personally wronged.

Mental Health became another passion of mine as I began my own healing journey from a past Domestic Violence situation. As a young adult I met a man, moved across the country, became secluded from my family and friends and for seven years I slowly became the shell of a person and my only identity remained to be a mother of a child I bore with a man that I didn’t even like anymore. Over that time, I had my name, my life, fire, drive, personality, and consent stripped from me as if it never existed to me in the first place. Freedom became a foreign entity to me. Ironically, this man was the very same person who bought me my first sewing machine as an adult. I had forgotten the love I had for creating, for fashion, for being completely immersed in something that shut the rest of the world out. When I received my sewing machine as a gift from my abuser, I went straight to work and found solace and peace in the art of creating.

Not long after, I created my first clothing line, as an adult, which began as a size adjustable linger line. To me, at that time in my life, lingerie was the definition of freedom. My mind created looks for an ideal woman that was able to wear what she wanted and be as free as she wanted. So my line showcased both a soft lace side of lingerie and a harder, tougher, leather side that embodied the balance that women have to face in life between being soft and feminine, but the unspoken side of the toughness we endure. Over time, this lingerie line became the strength I needed to find my voice again and leave my abusive environment.

I decided to showcase this lingerie in Paris Fashion Week under some of my newer clothing as a metaphor for where I started, the base understanding of who I was, and the strength and femininity of women that I stand for as a brand. I have since continued to make clothing driven towards women and their mental health. Fashion and mental health are a conjunction for me because it one day saved my life. I hope to bring my clothing to life for someone else and help their mental health.