Page 195 - Demo

www.MOSTmag.com || FASHIO N MAG A ZINE || 195FMM: What made you decide to pursue a career in fashion?T.S: Becoming a fashion designer was not a random decision. It has been my big dream since I was a little girl. I grew up under communism and life wasn%u2019t easy economically or politically. Good quality clothing, shoes, accessories etc. were not easy to buy. When I was 8 years old, I really wanted a pair of German leather shoes that cost 1/3 of my mom%u2019s salary, and my amazing mom bought them for me anyways. (Her salary as a physicist at the Academy of Sciences of Belarus was 120 rubles and the shoes cost 32 rubles.) My mother raised me by herself. To make extra money, she completed a two-year course in sewing and learned not only how to sew to perfection but also how to build patterns from scratch. I remember her coming home every day at seven p.m. from her day job and sitting behind the sewing machine till midnight. I grew up surrounded by copies of Burda and other fashion magazines. At a very young age, I could distinguish the feel of different fabrics. When I was 7, my grandmother taught me to knit. I learned how to sew at school, but my mother was my most influential teacher.When I was sixteen, I was to attend Fashion Designer Program in another city. I couldn%u2019t leave my mother and grandmother, so life prepared a different route for me. I enrolled in the library science program at the Belarusian University of Culture and, upon completion of my Master%u2019s Degree, taught library and information science for five years before going to Louisiana State University [LSU] to pursue my Master%u2019s Degree.My childhood dream of becoming a fashion designer never died, though. At the age of 44, I decided that it was better late than never and started a new course in my life.FMM: What are your qualifications as a fashion designer and how do you think your education has prepared you to work in the industry?T.S: I haven%u2019t completed a fashion designer degree; instead I consider myself a natural-born artist. In 2012, I began to study fashion formally in the Otis College Continuing Education Program. I do not know how many years it will take me to complete a degree in this way. I joke with my mom about it and tell her that maybe, by the age of 90, I will have a degree ... if I really need it! While taking classes in the Otis program, I created a line of TATIANASHABELNIK>>>>>