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Hello -- I am Debbie. I have loved fashion since I was a pre-teen. When I was a teenager, I used to knit and crochet Barbie doll clothes and sell them at a local consignment store. I have fashion drawings (that I created by tracing first comic book superhero figures and then by tracing figures from newspaper ads) from many years (since I was in my teens). I have never created any of the designs (though I did have one created for me, and I learned a painful lesson -- if you have a dress made from satin, don't use velvet as a waistband, particularly if you are large-waisted).
When I was in my 20s, I took classes at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, but I never was able to finish either Flat Pattern Design or Draping classes despite a total of 3 attempts. I did learn a lot about jewelry designing and making -- I do currently sell some of my jewelry designs on my Facebook Page and I also have some of my fashion sketches on line. I also currently sell products on several sites, including Zazzle (this link is to one of the designs I created on the computer using Corel Draw).
My nieces (one of whom is a fashion design student) got me hooked on Project: Runway a few years back (I think I started watching it religiously in season 5 -- I have seen some early season episodes (I did see some of the season 1 episodes and I became a huge fan of Austin Scarlet )). I have used their challenges as ideas to create more designs. I'm still trying to teach myself How to Sew and how to make patterns.
A few years back, I started reading fashion magazines. I go through them and tear out pages that have designs I like (I Love shoes and have designed some shoes, too) and put them in a binder. I started with Vogue and Elle and, now that Marie Claire has a lot of the Project: Runway connection "stuff", I recently started reading it. I'm hardly an expert, but I do have my own style. What I design, though, and what I wear aren't exactly the same (ok, I mostly wear loose jersey tops over leggings).
So, I'm going to try to comment on things fashionable including my own designs (and my progress in this area), designs I like in the magazines and Project: Runway.
(Oh, by the way, the title of the blog -- I decided to call it Debbie The Fashionita, not Fashionista, because I'm a Fashionista in training and in Spanish, which I speak a bit of, -ita at the end of a word is a female diminutive.
