Designers Piece Together a New Life

Lucy Colmenares proudly points out her creations amid mounds of stuffing, pin cushions and lace. Her decorated pillows made it to the display table, alongside calico cats and a bright green dinosaur cushion.

Around the workroom of the School of Fashion and Design, sewing machines whirred and scissors clicked as dresses, scarfs, quilts and satchels took form. Just like any other design shop--except that Colmenares and her 35 classmates are developmentally disabled.

Colmenares, 30, of Altadena, has cerebral palsy, a handicap that makes stitching on a button a minor victory. Yet she has mastered the industrial sewing machine, a challenge for anyone as it whizzes over the cloth at 10 times the regular speed.

Students, all older than 18, attend five days a week and typically graduate after three years. Their mentor is the vibrant Angelina Levy, 54, a Temple City fashion designer with a fierce pride in her charges.

Honored for Work

“I thought (when forming the school) it would just be sewing, but you become a mother, father, everything,” Levy said. Her work with the disabled won her the 1985 Pope John XXIII Award, the highest honor accorded annually by the Italian Catholic Foundation.

Levy’s optimism about the potential in the disabled is affirmed all over her office walls. A pensive boy on a poster decides: “I know I’m somebody . . . ‘cause God don’t make no junk.” Another sign proclaims the school a “Department of Sunshine and Rainbows. Hopes Restored, Spirits Lifted, Enthusiasm Renewed.”

Many students start off sullen or hostile because they have been rejected so many other times, Levy said.

She recalled that Colmenares had very little patience when she arrived in 1986. “She’s mellowed down. She’s been learning there are others in the world beside Lucy.”

Another client was so restless she couldn’t sit still for more than a minute, but now can work quietly for long stretches.

“With this type of work you concentrate. They’re learning . . .” said Levy, whose son is dyslexic and partially blind.

Occasionally an epileptic client has a seizure. While some students dash off to grab a wet towel or open the cot, the others calmly continue working.

Aside from the nuts and bolts of sewing, students learn to cope with life as well. They are given tips on grooming and money management. Students label their products, take inventory, write invoices and order materials.

The school has a boutique where students sell their creations. In working there, they hone interpersonal skills and learn to count the change they receive with each sale.

Levy sends students to libraries to research design, and others make the rounds of department stores and boutiques with their wares, “just to mainstream them, get them out into the community.”

Student Fashion Show

Last November, eight students gave a fashion show of their products to Department of Developmental Services officials in Sacramento. Six had never flown before.

“These are not the kinds of experiences our clients ever get,” said Herman Fogata, director of the Eastern Los Angeles Regional Center. The state Department of Developmental Services agency, which coordinates resources for the developmentally disabled, supports the school with $22.68 per client per day.

Fogata said many of the center’s clients must settle for less demanding jobs, such as gardening or janitorial work, because employers doubt their abilities.

“Here you have people whose work is sellable not because of compassion but because the product is good,” he said.

Levy launched the school in East Los Angeles with four students four years ago. The workroom and boutique was moved to Alhambra in January for better storefront exposure. Students keep all profits from sales of their work.

“They are not fast, like an assembly line, but they can complete a garment with quality,” says Levy, a graduate of the New York Fashion Institute of Technology.

“There’s a lot of waste when I first get a student; they can damage a lot of things,” she said. “They cut right through a pattern . . . and a beautiful piece of material becomes material for a quilt!

“All their lives they’ve been told they can’t do it. . . . But once they leave me I want them on a (regular) salary,” Levy said. She plans to open her own business in Temple City within a year and employ some of her graduates.

Colmenares, Levy said, will head the alterations department.

“It’s very hard to find a place that would hire a person like me. The longest I’ve worked in one place was six months,” said Colmenares. Once she was put in charge of stuffing envelopes. Another time she packed materials.

“I like this best,” she said of her work at the school, “because I make things.”