Fame, especially in the cutthroat world of fashion, has a cost. (Just ask the contestants on “Project Runway.”) And while Secaucus High School isn’t exactly the hallowed halls of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), it is one of the places where designers of tomorrow are starting to pay their dues.
Just ask SHS grad and current FIT student Danielle Kickey.
“It was in high school that I started taking fashion seriously and starting really thinking about a career in design,” said Kickey, a 2006 SHS graduate, last week.
Kickey credits the sewing classes she took with Kathy Kuchar with giving her the foundation she needed for her current course of study in FIT’s technical design program.
“I like the idea when we get to design, it can be absolutely anything that we want.” – Danielle Kickey
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Classic chic
“Basically, the program I’m doing was pattern making previously. Then they closed it down and they completely redid it. Now it all geared towards the digital aspects of design. Pattern making has changes a lot Almost no one really does it all out on paper anymore. You just sketch everything out in computer programs.”
Interestingly, Kickey’s course of study is teaching her just as much about the best computer software programs for designers as it is about the draping of different fabrics.
Every clothing manufacturer – from H&M to Calvin Klein – relies on the talents of both “fashion designers” and “technical designers” to translate their vision to the customer, Kickey stated, the niece of former Secaucus Town Councilman Robert Kickey.
“Fashion designers come up with the vision. They’re the ones who come up with the ideas, the concept of how the clothes should look. Technical designers are more behind the scenes. They’re the ones who make the vision happen.”
After toying with the possibility of being a fashion designer, Kickey, said she eventually settled on a technical design program because “I like being more behind the scenes, so I think it just suited it me more.”
So, what can consumers expect from Kickey, the technical designer, in the future? In a word, comfort.
“I want to design things that I would wear, things I think my friends would like,” she said. “I have a very relaxed style. I like clothes you can be really comfortable in. I’m not really sure where I would want to work, but I would definitely want to go to a company that I’d shop in, like J. Crew. I tend to like a really simple, classic style.”
A big fan of fashion designer Donna Karen – whose first collection included just a handful of pieces she believed every woman should own – Kickey said she also believes that everybody should have a few “staple” items in their wardrobe that are “classic and timeless and won’t go out of style” after a few months.
“I like the idea when we get to design, it can be absolutely anything that we want,” she said. “Inspiration can come from music or a picture. The end product for me is my favorite thing – putting all your efforts into something and seeing it come together, especially when it’s exactly what you envisioned. I like it when creativity and functionality merge. When you focus all your energy on that, it’s the most outstanding, satisfying feeling. It’s the feeling of knowing I can do that in the end no matter what I have to do to get there, that drives me and keeps the passion alive. I love it, I do love it”
Today, Secaucus. Tomorrow, Milan!
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.