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"   One of my favorite designers right now is Autumn Adeigbo. She is an amazing artist with an extraordinary heart. As such, she makes clothing with a conscious, helping to support female artisans in Africa and donating proceeds to the charity Women for Women International. (I&amp;#039;ve shot two of the dress-designer&amp;#039;s pieces for my &amp;quot;Feel-Good Fashion&amp;quot; page and hope to continue to support her line!) I met with Autumn last week to talk about her collection and her big plans for the world.  So, first of all, tell me about the dress you are wearing.  It&amp;#039;s the same silhouette as my dress that is in your Marie Claire April feature (a.k.a. the Billie Dress) but it&amp;#039;s one-of-a-kind. The fabric was sourced in South Africa on a styling job I did there last year. It&amp;#039;s by a company called Shine Shine, and the fabric is in celebration of Barack Obama \u2014 hence his portraits all over the dress. It&amp;#039;s one of my favorite pieces for spring because it&amp;#039;s so bright, colorful, and cheerful. And it&amp;#039;s celebrating such a turning point in American history with the election of Barack Obama.  How did you decide you wanted to be a fashion designer?  My mom used to sew many of my dresses when I was a little girl. I was the 4-year-old in a leopard-print sweater at my birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese&amp;#039;s. I clearly remember the moment I decided I wanted to become a designer. I was 19, in my sophomore year at Spelman College up late night doodling and dreaming about my future career. I was an economics major, but I did not see myself working in the finance or banking world. After writing the careers of &amp;quot;designer&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;stylist to the stars&amp;quot; as my two top career choices, I decided to apply to Parson&amp;#039;s Summer Intensive Fashion Program. After completing it, I returned to Parsons to get a degree in Fashion Design after graduating from Spelman.  What is the ethos behind your line?  As I&amp;#039;ve matured, I&amp;#039;ve realized I want to make a real difference in the world, especially in the lives of the women and children of Africa. I decided to donate five percent of each dress sale to an organization that feeds back to this cause. I love the organization Women for Women International because they don&amp;#039;t just donate money to African communities, but they offer micro-credit loans and instill women with the skills they need to become self-sufficient business owners and community leaders. Women learn the skills to support themselves, their families and their communities.  What inspires you in your designs?  My collection, which is a capsule collection of dresses, is inspired by women. That&amp;#039;s why I design a product that is exclusive to the female gender. I incorporate African prints and influence because my family is Nigerian, and I find the color and prints dramatic and awe-inspiring. I love the idea of women in the west supporting women in Africa by wearing something inspired by the African homeland. It&amp;#039;s like this mutually inspiring and supportive relationship \u2014 and aren&amp;#039;t those the best kind of relationships?  Who inspires you in life?  I&amp;#039;m inspired by anyone or anything I come into contact with that makes me feel more alive in a positive way and makes me want to become a better person. I also love astrology, children, animals, nature, and the ocean.  In ten years, what will you be doing?  In ten years, I will have made a positive difference in the lives of a million people using my particular gifts \u2014 fashion, color, style, and a whole lot of heart. Falling Whistles is a California-based non-profit campaigning for peace in the Congo. The whistles are inspired by the child soldiers who stand on the frontlines of the war and whose only &amp;quot;weapons&amp;quot; are the whistles they blow letting everyone behind them know that the enemy is approaching. Symbolically, when you wear a falling whistle, you show the world you are a whistle-blower for peace.   In my April &amp;quot;Feel-Good Fashion&amp;quot; page, on newsstands now, I tell readers to wear this dress by Autumn Adeigbo ($419) with these necklaces of paper beads handmade in Rwanda (Anthropologie; $42) and \u2014 my favorite \u2014 sustainably produced Calleen Cordero sandals ($365). "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/fashion/a5930/autumn-adeigbo-african-dresses/>