EMERGING DESIGNER

Joy Gross

IN THIS FEATURE: Meet Joy Gross Fashion Focus

y design style is constantly evolving and depends on my mood, right now its a little edgy for Fall with chains and feather details. But I like to keep it flirty also. Fashion should be fun, we aren't curing cancer here.

Joy Gross, a Pompano Beach Florida native was a designer in the making from the beginning whether she knew it or not. According to her mother, Joy was very particular about her clothes. Even as a small child she would refuse to wear man-made fibers complaining that they itched. Not only was she picky about her own clothes, at around 6 years of age, the resourceful youngster would make her own Barbie clothes from scraps of fabric. However talented, Joy did not imagine being a fashion designer at that time. Being a very imaginative child, she was heavily into arts and crafts, painting, drawing and anything that was creative.

She recalls her teenage years, “As a teenager I did have my fashion missteps, who didn't? I think the worst was the baggy jean/boy look that a lot of us wore. It makes me cringe thinking about it, ew.” Thankfully that phase didn't last long and she began dressing like a girl after 9th grade. Joy was really into fashion and was lucky enough to work at a few retail stores as a teenager. She worked at T.J. Maxx and then Burdines to get discounts on the clothes. Her whole paycheck was pretty much spent at the job. Some of her favorites were Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and even BCBG which she wore during high school. Even then while in high school Joy really didn't think about being a fashion designer. Although she knew she liked art, she didn't really know what she wanted to with it. So she began to read about all the different majors offered at different schools.

After an uneasy start at Florida Atlantic University, Joy decided to transfer to Florida State University after finding out that they offered a major in Fashion Design. In her sophomore year at FSU she learned to sew and that opened up a whole new world for the budding designer. Once she started going to classes, she realized how much she enjoyed and loved making clothes. It was the beginning of her future career. With her new-found love of fashion, Joy started making outfits for herself and her roommates. She ended up making most of their partying clothes so they would stand out from the crowd of partygoers in their unique ensembles. “It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot in the process,” Gross reminisces.

While at FSU Gross entered the Dallas Design Competition. It was the biggest competition all year and contestants had to go to Dallas to be considered. So in her last year of school she decided to go for it. Joy astonshingly won 3rd place for Wearable Art, much to her surprise! She remembers, “I nearly had a heart attack when they called my name! I really couldn't believe it because about 1,000 people entered the competition. I even won $300 and that’s a lot when you are broke and in college. It was the best feeling ever.” She graduated from FSU with a double major in Apparel Design & Fashion Merchandising. Joy has recently been taking classes at FIT in the Continuing Education & Professional Studies Dept.