DESIGNER DREAMS

The one place she really feels at home is in a garage full of needles and thread.

Elizabeth Gage Ritchie, or EG as she insists on being called, is a 16-year-old junior and a fashion designing entrepreneur.

Ritchie has been altering her belongings since she was 5. She puts stitches in her jeans, sews pockets onto shirts, paints designs on her shoes and makes jewelry.

Ritchie even personalizes birthday and Christmas gifts by designing and making purses and memory boxes for her friends.

Now, Ritchie has moved from altering her belongings to altering the belongings of others. She does this through her clothing line "Vindicated." The idea for the fledgling company came to Ritchie in physical education class at Bishop Gorman High School during her sophomore year.

"I had a friend in the class called Nikki Cuckenbecker," Ritchie says. "One day I told her about my dream of having my own store, and I told her that I want to be able to go to Bryant Park in New York and just display my artwork."

From this conversation, Ritchie and Cuckenbecker started discussing their love of fashion and talked about the stereotypes of present-day models.

"We decided that we wanted to make clothes for the realistic modern woman," says Cuckenbecker, a 16-year-old junior from Gorman, "not the anorexic models."

Next, Ritchie and Cuckenbecker decided to move their dreams forward by launching Vindicated on MySpace. Ritchie would sketch and design, while Cuckenbecker would be in charge of creating the patterns and sewing together the clothes.

They began their work in Ritchie's room -- i.e., her family's garage -- where she lives because of the ease of converting it into a half-bedroom, half-studio.

"My garage is full to the max of art supplies, needles, thread and accessories that I can sew into clothing," Ritchie says. "It's the perfect place to hide out and perform my transformations."

Customers who want their apparel altered can contact Ritchie and Cuckenbecker on their MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/zealouss), and from there Ritchie decides how much it's going to cost the person.

"I'm not really worried about the money," she says. "I have people pay me when I need cash for supplies, and people pay me for any expenses I acquire while modifying their clothes."

Ritchie has had a desire to make art since she was a young child, and she works in several mediums in addition to her fashion designs.

"I try to cover every milestone in life," she says, "which is why I have so many creative outlets."

Ritchie writes poetry and stories. She's currently in the middle of penning a tale called "Girl in the SUV Next Door," which is about a group of college students who love music.

Ritchie also paints portraits of her friends and just about anything else that floats into her brain.

Stefan Briones, an 18-year-old senior at Gorman, has been a fan of Ritchie's artwork since they had their first art class together during his sophomore year.

"She's an amazing artist with imaginative ideas," Briones says. "It's very obvious that her abstract art is a reflection of her inner self."

As Briones suggests, Ritchie's artistic ability is distinct.

"I just love EG's unique style," says Brittany Highland, an 18-year-old from Gorman who's in the process of ordering something from Vindicated. "I wish that more fashion designers made clothes like hers. I know her clothing line will be famous one day."