EMERGING DESIGNER

Loreal Banks

IN THIS FEATURE: Meet Loreal Banks Fashion Focus

oreal's design style is flirty, fun, and contemporary ready-to-wear. She loves prints and most of all making dresses using Chiffon. Loreal also enjoys using other fabrics such as satin, silk, charmeuse, and jersey. This up and coming designer is currently working on her next collection for Fall/Winter. Every collection tells a different story but overall is a reflection of who Loreal is. Her designs bring out a woman's inner beauty.

Loreal Banks was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Even when she was young as age seven, she was interested in fashion. She never really liked playing with dolls, but asked her mother to buy her one just so she could design and make clothes for them out of old t-shirts. As Loreal grew up she never lost her desire to design and make clothes. By the time she was 14 her interest in sewing intensified. Her first sewing machine was given to her by her sister after seeing it advertised on television. However, the sewing machine didn't last a week. Later on that year as a Christmas present, she received a home sewing machine. Soon after Loreal began receiving personal sewing lessons from a retired woman. The individual lessons did not work out and Loreal gave up on her sewing dream for a while because she was disappointed. Three years later during her senior year of high school, she got the urge to learn how to sew again, and turned to a Reverend at her church for lessons. Loreal learned all of the basic techniques and completed her own first two-piece skirt set. It was at that moment, Loreal was inspired to turn her passion for fashion into a career. In 2005, after graduating from high school, Loreal enrolled at American Intercontinental University where she is currently pursuing a Bachelor's of Fine Arts degree in Fashion Marketing and Design. She will complete her program by fall of 2008.