Austin School of Fashion Design is Here!

O.K. This is where I tell you how all of this happened and hopefully get some great feedback started.

I have wanted to start this school for some time now.....after 20 years as a Fashion designer, I was invited to teach fashion design at The University of Texas in Austin. I fell in love with the teaching part, and really out of love with the academic bureaucracy part. Fighting the system in order to do something good for the students takes the wind out of a good teacher's sails. And unfortunately, the students don't get the best. It took one year for my students to start begging me to open my own school. The kids loved me, and I certainly did love them......I really cared about them learning everything that I could teach them. Austin School of Fashion Design is certainly dedicated to my students at UT, who I still hear from on a daily basis and have inspired me, at this stage, to begin this school.

I graduated from FIT in New York, and there really is nothing better than FIT. Now..... I loved Project Runway, and Parsons did a really good job of hosting, but FIT is still where it's at. I tell all of my students, if you have a chance to take anything at FIT, do it! So, this is what got me to start this school. I was watching Project Runway, and every week my students and I would analyze everyone's work on the show, and I could see the excitement in their faces. I just love to see students eyes light up, when they are excited about learning. My students wouldn't miss a class. I have received an invaluable amount of encouragement from them, and they are, really, why I am beginning this Fashion Design School.

Fashion Design is a very unique profession. A few years ago I was invited to take part in a symposium sponsored by the fabulous School of Architecture at the University of Texas. Dean Fritz Steiner opened my eyes to the wonderful relationship between architecture and design. I even added a class teaching exactly that correlation. It was at that symposium that I realized that Fashion Design is almost exactly like architecture...we design with the same process. I challenged the entire panel to explain to me how my skirt was made, and you would think a group of architects who can build anything would have been able to do it. One person solved the design. Fashion design is left brain and right brain all at the same time. The major approach to design is mathematical, which surprises most. So, students have to use math, as well as anatomy to understand the body structure.....and it is a moving structure.....so our design must be able to move. Designers also need to understand Textile science. An MBA is almost necessary to start your own company...learning importing and exporting laws for textiles and manufacturing. And then an Accounting degree helps to run your company. Manufacturing a collection requires a knowledge of all the components of construction, from sewing, to flat pattern, to drafting, to computer generated designing. And, last but certainly not least, is the Art part of it. It takes all of these factors to understand the elements of a beautiful garment and how to sell it. What I just explained, is the reason I wanted to start this school. We all need to be excited about what we do in life, and Fashion Design is an incredibly fascinating process; challenging every part of our brain. I am so excited to get this School open and going, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Mary Margaret Quadlander