Patterns to Fulfill Dreams
Like most aspiring fashion designers, Vicki Cerna has long dreamed of Paris.
“Two years ago I saw a flyer for Fullerton College’s fashion tour of Europe and thought, ‘Oh, I would love to go.’ But I’m low-income. I thought I’d never be able to do it,” says Cerna, 24, who studies fashion design at the school. “I figured it was only a dream for me.”
In June her dream may materialize. If she can line up enough sponsors to help pay the $3,000 tour fee, she’ll be on her way to the great design houses of Europe. Already one restaurant in her home town of Azusa has agreed to help pay for the trip.
“I’ll learn about fashion and different cultures. I’ll bring home many ideas,” Cerna says.
While dreams of Paris runways and beautiful clothes fill students’ heads, Fullerton College’s fashion design program typically offers a more nuts-and-bolts approach to the garment industry.
“We teach job skills and reality,” says Doris Fuqua, fashion design coordinator for the college.
“You can’t become a designer for a manufacturer if you don’t know how to do a sketch or make a pattern. Here they learn to run a factory on a small scale.”
The students work in classrooms filled with power sewing machines, dressmakers’ dummies, patterns and sketches.
During the pattern drafting class, 31-year-old Alma Davila sits at a table with a ruler and sharpened pencil, sketching a pattern with the precise measurements of a draftsman.
“We’re learning to manipulate darts, seams and facing,” Davila says.
She makes hand-painted textiles and decided to enroll in the program because she wanted to design something besides T-shirts with her fabric. One day she hopes her “art to wear” will sell in exclusive boutiques.
“We try to make it as much like a real-world industry as possible,” Fuqua says.
It’s a world far away from the fashion houses of Paris.
“Most young people think if they become a designer, the world will bow at their feet. We convince them they’ll start out working in a factory, picking up pins at their feet.”
Picking up pins, however, isn’t enough to discourage students such as Cerna.
“I love everything about fashion,” she says. “When I was little, I would sew clothes for my dolls.”
After she completes one more year at the college, she hopes to design clothes for a large manufacturer.
“Later I want to have my own business and become a fashion trend-setter,” she says.
The 20-day trip to Europe, which departs June 15, is the students’ only contact with the worldly, glamorous side of fashion.
Connie Cooper, a fashion instructor at the college for 24 years, will escort the class to fashion and tourist attractions in London, Paris, Lucerne, Milan, Florence and Rome. Not everyone who takes the tour is enrolled in the Fullerton program.
“I want to go because I love clothes,” says Wendy Jeffries, who recently attended an introductory seminar for the tour. “I saw the sign and thought, ‘Oh, it sounds so fun.’ ”
Participants will see all phases of fashion design, from sketch pad to store rack. They’ll visit design schools, textile manufacturers and designer showrooms throughout Europe, including the trendy London design house of Zandra Rhodes, where Princess Diana shops and blouses sell for $500 or more. They’ll be treated to a private fashion show presented by Emilio Pucci, the grandfather of Italian fashion design, at his palace in Florence.
“It’s an excellent way for them to get an idea of what’s going on in the world of fashion,” Cooper says. “They see what’s selling in the stores and what influences our designers over here. Europe is where the trends are set.”
In Italy, the students will see fine leather and silks not found in the United States. In France, they’ll visit exclusive fashion boutiques.
“It opens up their whole horizon,” Cooper says.
“One year a lady bought three trunks full of hats. She’s now a successful hat designer.”
For 22-year-old Claudine Brousseau of Whittier, the trip is a reward from her parents for completing the college’s two-year fashion program.
Brousseau, who hopes to design misses’ sportswear, showed up for Cooper’s seminar wearing her own strapless short jumpsuit made of a black and white paisley print and a hot pink bolero-style jacket with matching insets of the paisley fabric. She’s already constructing her wardrobe for the trip.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Paris for inspiration,” she says. “I’m interested in seeing how people live and what they wear.”
About 80 students are enrolled in the fashion design program, and 80 more study fashion merchandising at the college. The programs cost $50 a semester. For just $200, students can graduate with an associate of arts degree. Private schools, in contrast, charge up to $10,000 a year for tuition.
To graduate, students must take practical courses such as textiles, workroom sketching, apparel production and advanced sewing.
“At Fullerton, I learned about fabrics and how to construct garments. If you don’t have that training, no one will want to talk to you” when you look for a job, says Anthony Farmer, a 1982 graduate of the fashion design program who now designs junior’s sportswear for Flamingo in Los Angeles.
Considered one of the college’s more successful graduates, Farmer has had one of his designs, a dotted Lycra halter top, on the cover of Women’s Wear Daily.
“Fullerton does not have the name (of the prestigious private schools), so you have to sell yourself,” Farmer says.
Most graduates begin their careers as assistant designers for larger companies and work their way up to becoming designers. Some become fashion illustrators, working with the advertising departments of major stores or large manufacturers who need artists to sketch their line of clothing for the pattern makers. Often they work as unpaid interns to get the experience they need to break into the business.
The fashion program’s finale takes place each spring, with the college’s annual fashion show. Student designers put together their own collections for the show, which is open to the public. This year’s show takes place from noon to 7:30 p.m. May 24.
“We give them a lot of freedom and encourage them to be creative,” Fuqua says. One girl, for instance, sewed a Hula-Hoop into the bottom of a skirt.
The school emphasizes technique, but it doesn’t quell creativity.
Fuqua once asked her students to use something they had found in a hardware store in their designs. One person made a collar out of yellow dust mops, another made a skirt from a checkered picnic tablecloth, complete with wooden utensils tacked on the front. Others made use of patio screening and artificial grass.
“They grumbled a lot,” says Fuqua, “but the assignment helped stretch their imaginations.”
