Skorch
F INTERVIEW
E AT U R E
Fashion
school
only
taught
how to
make
clothes
for
fashion
models.
Her dive into the fashion industry
didn’t start as a designer, but instead
as a model. At the age of 14 and in
the time when plus size clothing was
the farthest thing from young or
cool, she ventured into the world of
plus size modeling. As time went on,
however, she found herself drawn
more to design. She eventually ma-
jored in it in college. But even in the
school of design, she found herself
having to take on chaos and
make it something beautiful.
Fashion school only taught
how to make clothes for
fashion models. Instead
of being taught how to fit
clothes to plus size bod-
ies, she had to figure it out
through trial and error.While
most people would have
torn their hair out paying
tons of money for schooling
that left out the very body
she hoped to dress, Theary
only fell more in love with
the challenge. Which was
good, because the challenge
was just beginning.
Attending school in the
south had changed her
body...well cornbread and
greens changed her body but
that’s pretty much the same
thing. The extra weight gain meant
she no longer met her agency’s idea
of a “catalog model” and she was
dropped. Another challenge, anoth-
er smile, another shrug. She found
herself a job at a bank, and focused
in on her dream of having her own
clothing line. She took every class,
went to every business seminar and
found out how to make her dream