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" Launched for Spring 2013, Stephanie Waldrip&amp;#039;s line, Waldrip may be fresh to the New York fashion scene, but her consistent style belies her newcomer status. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art &amp;amp;amp; Design, the Georgia native is a self-described textile nerd, who sees &amp;quot;every day as a new project, a new goal.&amp;quot; Hear more from this jubilant designer, get a peek at her Spring 2014 collection and hear why she&amp;#039;s pro-local. What was your break into the industry? I got a job right out of SCAD assisting an up-and-coming designer here. He&amp;#039;s no longer in business but he did custom alligator skin jackets with fur, and very luxe designs. We met when he was at my school and I was like, &amp;#039;Hey, I&amp;#039;m going to come intern for you.&amp;#039; I moved to New York to intern for him, got here and I showed up at his place and he was like &amp;#039;Sorry, my assistant just left, do you want to be my assistant?&amp;#039; So I got the job and I was like &amp;#039;I will work for you night and day.&amp;#039; That was the beginning! What prompted you to go out on your own? I never would have had the confidence to start my own collection without that experience, but when that was over I was like &amp;#039;Okay, what am I going to do? I have learned so much here.&amp;#039; I thought, &amp;#039;I don&amp;#039;t want to work for anyone else. I&amp;#039;ve been part of his business, I&amp;#039;ve made so many contacts and I also have a great business partner, Gavin Brooks.&amp;#039; Gavin handles the business side, she was the perfect person to partner with because we&amp;#039;re complete opposites, so we balance each other. She&amp;#039;s very Southern belle. Also, the day I started thinking about it I went to our furrier and he said &amp;#039;If you want to start a small fur jacket collection then I can help you start out.&amp;quot; And I was like &amp;#039;wow, you believe in me that&amp;#039;s amazing. A fur man believes in me!&amp;#039; It felt like kismet.  What was your vision for the brand? My vision has always been very much about the fabrication and about offering women a textile that they just have to have. I feel like every store that we&amp;#039;re in, we always get a lot of compliments from women who love it because of the texture. It just adds something different. I like taking classic and timeless silhouettes and sprucing them up with textiles that are custom or rare. What&amp;#039;s your design process like? I think the process is definitely part of sourcing the textiles. I feel like I always have an idea before of what I want and then I go from there. I sketch based on the inspiration, and then it&amp;#039;s all about sourcing the right fabrics from the right people. It&amp;#039;s inspiring when I meet older people in the industry that want to have my back or help me because really, this whole Garment District is where I am all the time. What was on your mind for Spring 2014 in particular? Spring was a lot about Art Deco, Miami, infused with the Latin. I&amp;#039;m Colombian and half my family lives in Miami, so I spend a lot of time there, but for the first time I went there for vacation with my boyfriend&amp;#039;s family and it was completely different seeing it from their point of view (they&amp;#039;re tourists from Brazil). We walked around and I never appreciated the architecture from outside because I grew up going there, so I I took it for granted. I was just like &amp;#039;wow, this is beautiful.&amp;#039; And then I wanted to make it a little sexy but not overdo it\u2014 just keep it more demure. See more from Spring 2014 at waldripcollection.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/designers/a1485/designer-stephanie-waldrip-interview/>