Photo taken and styled by Alexa Winner

Since she was in the eighth grade, Alexa Winner has been compiling pictures of her favorite looks, models, shoes, celebrities, magazine editors, and more. With graduation looming from the Parsons New School for Design, the 22-year-old looks back to her younger days, reminiscing. The intricate details of each page of her portfolio of inspirations, which spans over eight years, tell a story. They show Winner’s style, her design sense and how fashion has evolved over the past decade. Her style? Short sparkly skirts, impossibly high heels, and backless dresses for night, and sweatpants, a Harley Davidson t-shirt, and ballet flats by day. 

As the Chicago-born design student begins what she hopes is the path to success, she is already a few steps ahead of her contemporaries. Winner’s line of eclectic and ornate headband, priced from $100 to $600, are sold at well-known boutique “Blue and Cream” in New York City’s East Village. And, her first line of dresses debuted in an exclusive fashion show at Lily Pond nightclub in the Hamptons this past summer. 

Luckily for her, Winner had the right people backing her up. The designs for the fashion show were bankrolled by her parents and a business partner “handled the financial aspects as well as the promotional logistics.” 

Most of Winner’s memories from childhood are of being by herself and drawing. 

“I think I always wanted to be a creator because I had such an insane imagination as a child,” says Winner. “I remember always having a fascination with people and, from a very young age, designing outfits inspired by the people around me.” 

Winner’s mother is an interior designer, and Winner believes that influenced her creativity as a child. She also credits her grandmother, “a brilliant shopper with an incredible sense of style.” 

She also has a mentor, Angelica Burns, who taught Winner how to sew and sketch in high school, while Winner was enrolled in a fashion workshop. Whenever Winner goes home to Chicago, she brings numerous garments along with her so that Burns can help her modify them. 

While Winner may stand out for her initial design successes, the route she is following in hopes of becoming a designer is traveled by hundreds of other fashion students. Like her, many found a creative spark as a child and became well-versed in the basics of fashion design, including sewing and sketching, long before they attend design school. Like Winner, they hope that extensive training and a design degree from schools such as Parsons and the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), along with internships and networking, will help them achieve their dream of becoming one of the almost 23,000 fashion designers in the United States. While some of those designers will become household names, most will not. Many designers are still needed to “create the billions of dresses, suits, shoes, and other clothing and accessories purchased every year by consumers,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. 

Like Winner, Jasmin Larian, a 21-year-old design student at F.I.T., had her creativity fostered from childhood. “The skills I had before I went to F.I.T. were learned from my mother who was in fashion design,” she says, “I would ask her to help me make clothes.” Larian was also very creative as a child, and started inventing her style from childhood – flattering, forgiving, and feminine dresses that look beautiful on curvy women. 

These relatively advanced skills that aspiring designers learn from childhood, are also seen elsewhere, such as on Lifetime’s reality television show “Project Runway.” Even on this show, the contestants are well versed in the basics of fashion design long before they come on the show. 

Take Emmett McCarthy, for example, who was a contestant of the second season of “Project Runway.” Before McCarthy was on the show, he attended Parsons for design. And, he already knew how to sew. He was taught by his childhood neighbor, a seamstress. His “skills were sharpened with experience,” says McCarthy. 

McCarthy is now a successful designer with his own boutique, EMc2 in the Nolita district of Manhattan. His advice for aspiring designers? He recommends design schools such as Parsons or F.I.T. because these schools can teach the fundamentals such as pattern-making and fabric selection. He attended both Parsons, for an undergraduate degree, and F.I.T., for a graduate degree in design. He credits them with a lot of his success. 

Winner agrees. “Going to Parsons has been one of, if not the greatest opportunities of my life,” she says, “It has allowed me not only to explore various styles of art but to also explore myself and develop my own personal style.” 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics explains, “employers usually seek designers with a 2-year or 4-year degree who are knowledgeable about textiles, fabrics, ornamentation and fashion trends.” 

Winner’s Parsons fashion courses taught her “how to better draw what are referred to as ‘fashion croquis,’” Winner says. Fashion croquis are exaggerated bodies on a sketchpad that make clothing designs look more appealing. At Parsons, she has also been trained in the basics of draping and pattern making, and was able to fine-tune her sewing skills. 

Fiona Dieffenbacher, an instructor of fashion design at Parsons, teaches what is called “design core concepts,” which focuses the design process, research, fabric, technical flat sketching, and mood boards. “The class helps students realize what their own creative vision is, what sets them apart, and what helps them to understand themselves,” says Dieffenbacher. And the creative vision is extremely important because it is what allows young designers to set new trends. 

Since many students come to school knowing the basics of fashion design, it is likely that they are all at varying levels, says Dieffenbacher. However, what puts them all on the same level is a little bit of healthy competition. “Students seem to become inspired when they see how well their classmates are doing,” she says, “and it makes them want to work harder.” 

An important aspect at design school is learning the fundamentals of business as well, Dieffenbacher says. “Students need good concepts as well as basic skills,” she says. “They need a balance between design and business.” McCarthy explains that aspiring designers must have a good knowledge for business if they want to make it in the industry. 

Because of shows such as “Project Runway,” there has been an obsession with attending fashion design schools that has been constantly growing. The show is even filmed in Parsons design classrooms. “There has definitely been a spike in applications just because of ‘Project Runway,’” says Sofia Liotta, a Parsons admissions representative. “When people find out I work at Parsons, they always ask me questions about ‘Project Runway.’” 

The fashion school business seems to be booming. Liotta explains that Parsons design school enrolls 5,000 students – a very large number for such a specialized major. 

What fuels the fire even more is that there are a large number of successful alumni who have graduated from these top design schools. Parsons is probably the best known with a roster of alumni, including Tom Ford, Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, and Donna Karan. Certain noted F.I.T. alumni include Brian Atwood, Reem Acra, Francisco Costa, Calvin Klein, and Nanette Lepore. 

But simply attending these reputable design schools is not enough. Students must take advantage of their surroundings while at these schools, and that includes interning. Pam Zuckerman, a representative from the career services department at F.I.T., says, “This industry values work experience as much as it values education.” 

Winner has held a variety of internships. She interned at public relations firm People’s Revolution in her first year in New York and got the opportunity to go to fashion shows during fashion week. She then interned for Ralph Lauren on their design team, and realized there that these are types of clothes she does not want to design. “I realized that a company like Ralph Lauren just designs the same clothes every season but with tiny variations,” Winner says, “It wasn’t exciting enough to simply enlarge a symbol or change a color palette.” She followed that with an internship at John Galliano with their merchandising team. Although she did not necessarily want to work in merchandising, she wanted to work for this renowned couture designer, because he is one of her biggest inspirations. Through her internship experiences, she has been able to narrow the scope of what she wants to do – her real passion is styling. 

In addition to interning, one of the most important assets for an aspiring designer is the ability to network, Zuckerman explains. “Almost all of the best jobs in the fashion industry are gotten through word of mouth and networking,” she says, “It’s all about who you know.” 

Winner is a pro when it comes to networking. She has been able to surround herself with some very influential people in the fashion industry. She worked closely with Kelly Cutrone, owner of People’s Revolution, and star of the new reality television show “Kell on Earth.” She was also able to meet Donatella Versace at the Whitney Gala Party in 2009. Additionally, Winner has gotten every internship she has ever held through her own networking. 

In order to properly network in Manhattan, one has to roll with the fabulous crowds of the fashion world, which means joining in the New York nightlife scene. “I think going out in the New York scene is a necessary evil as a designer,” Winner says, “It’s just the name of the game.” 

Along with old-fashioned networking, new social media such as Facebook and Twitter have helped aspiring designers market themselves, says Larian. A typical design student – hard working, persistent, and completely obsessed with fashion – Larian is finishing up with her final year at F.I.T. “I think there are infinitely more ways to design and reach out to customers through social media and viral marketing,” she says. 

Winner has her own webpage, which reaches out to her thousands of Facebook friends. Her fans are able to browse through pictures of her designs, and read press about her. In addition, on Winner’s Facebook account, there are numerous pictures of her in her various designs, which she wears herself when she goes out. She also has photo albums on Facebook of her childhood drawings and sketches. It is basically free advertising as well as networking. 

Winner explains that many of her contacts have been made through social networking. As well, Winner is a member of “stylecaster.com,” a website devoted to showing one’s style online. As a member, one can follow and be followed by other members, upload pictures of themselves in different outfits, and give and receive points to grade one another’s style. Winner is on the “Top 5 Best Dressed List” almost every day. 

In addition to having an aptitude for networking and attending a prestigious design school, aspiring designers must work hard to create their own brand. This is where Winner is set apart from the others. She has taken the next step. 

Winner’s idea for her headbands came about when she was wandering through the Chelsea Market in New York and saw a variety of brooches, “I thought they would look amazing in hair,” she says, “Sort of like a pseudo princess tiara but not tacky.” And that is exactly Winner’s style – anything glitzy, glittery and glamorous. 

But she also plays out a unique juxtaposition in her designs. Her dress collection that debuted in the Hamptons was made from Winner’s own designed textiles. From afar, the designs on the dresses look like a splatter of bright colors, but when looked at close enough, it can be seen that the dresses have a repetitive design of little pills and drug imagery in a variety of blues, pinks and purples. “I still love the concept behind it,” she says, “The feminine styles juxtaposed with the controversial imagery.” 

“When I design something, it’s filling a void for something that doesn’t already exist on the market,” she says, “but it’s something that I would want.” Such as this collection of dresses. 

In keeping with this, Winner’s major passion is finding unique pieces of clothing from vintage stores, and altering them to her liking. “I’ll take long dresses and make them short, I’ll cut out the entire back of a dress, and I will even add brooches,” she says. 

Winner flips through her closet in her Nolita apartment, pulling out dress after dress and laying them on her bed. A short sparkly blue dress, a cream colored and beaded skirt converted into a dress, and a very special piece – one of her grandmother’s outfits. Winner has altered each and every one of these vintage pieces to suit and fulfill her vision. 

Winner has, in a sense, branded herself. She is constantly marketing and advertising her designs because she truly loves them, which is perhaps why she always wears her own designs. 

Looking to the future, Winner is hopeful. She currently freelances for stylecaster.com, a website that puts together different looks and shows viewers how to dress for the weather each day. It can also be used as a social networking tool. Winner styles different looks for the website, and has gained enough attention by viewers that there will be an article written about her for the site. She will be photographed in three different New York City locations of her choice, and she will also be wearing her own designs, with complete control over the project. 

As well, she has four job offers at the moment for after graduation – three in New York and one in Italy. “I don’t want to jinx myself so I won’t mention names,” she says. 

But most are not so lucky. While Winner hopes to be a boutique designer, many fashion students will go on to design for a mass-market label, where most job opportunities are – designing clothing for “department stores and retail chain stores,” as explained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. 

The Bureau goes on to explain that competition for fashion design jobs will continue to increase, because aspiring designers yearn for the glamour that comes with being a high-end, successful fashion designer. Although this seeming obsession with the fame, fortune and glitz of the industry seems to wash over many aspiring designers, the pool of world-renowned designers is so small it seems impossible to break into. But at the end of the day, a job is a job, and those who love to design will still love designing for a company like the Gap. 

This seems to be the niche market anyways, what with the recession and all. People are not as interested in purchasing a high-end piece of clothing as they once were, and many have had to budget. This is definitely a reason why high-end designers have created less expensive lines, such as Coach creating its “Poppy” line and Alexander Wang creating his “T” line – to compete with chain stores such as the Gap and Old Navy. 

As she flips through her senior thesis portfolio, a proud sense of accomplishment washes over Winner’s face. Her portfolio consists of shots that were styled and photographed by her. She picked the models, makeup, locations of the shots, everything. She has poured her heart and soul into the project. 

The portfolio is titled “Some Girls Are Born Winners” – an appropriate use of her last name. Similarly, Winner’s screen name on Blackberry Messenger reads “I’m A. Winner.” 

“I will give myself credit for half a minute and say that I have definitely accomplished many things that have been on my trajectory checklist of things I want to accomplish by 22,” she says, “I work my ass off and I think that it has paid off.”