Designing an Education

It's rare an after-school job will produce anything more than gas money, but for Anna Romero it paved the road to a full-ride fashion school scholarship.

The 18-year-old worked in retail at the Grand Canal Shoppes two years ago at a children's store. She divided her time there between working and fantasizing. It was on her breaks here that she first made a habit of frequenting high fashion boutiques and marveling over the glamorous clothes. Not because she hoped to one day wear them. Romero was more interested in designing them.

Earlier this month the International Academy of Design & Technology (IADT) announced Romero as the winner of its national fashion design contest, which includes a full-tuition scholarship to the school in Henderson. Romero competed on a national level against nine other hopefuls to produce a cocktail dress that wowed judges. The lemongrass and aqua dress will appear in an upcoming IADT ad in Teen Vogue magazine.

Now, just two years after her fascination with fashion began, Romero is the designer of a dress worth $50,000 -- the value of her scholarship.

"I didn't think I was gonna win," Romero says. "I'm not used to winning stuff. I thought everyone else would be much better, but I wanted it so bad."

That's why she and her mother stayed up till the wee hours of the night fine-tuning her garment. She describes her winning design as similar to haute couture in its extraordinary nature. Beading detail, ruffle embellishment, pleating, an unusual neckline and dramatic draping all earn fabric space on the dress inspired by a desert terrain painting.

"I like to dance to my own beat. I wanted to do something completely new," she says.

Romero turned her interest in fashion from a mere fantasy to reality when she started sketching designs in her spare time. Soon after, the Army brat immersed herself in research, discovering an admiration for John Galliano of Christian Dior and then settling on Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel and Fendi as her idol because of his "attitude" and range.

Romero just graduated from high school in Virginia but had her sights set on IADT because her grandmother lives here. Once she has a fashion degree under her belt, Romero doesn't know where she'll go, but she's sure about what she wants to do.

"I want to see people wearing my clothes," she says.