Welcome to the world of Prete Designs

Prete Designs has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl.  As a child I did every crafty thing I could get my hands on, crocheting, sewing, needlepoint, embroidery and a few others that I've long since forgotten.  I made clothes and costumes in junior high and high school and devoured fashion magazines, dreaming of the day when I could call myself a fashion designer.  Somewhere along the way, that dream got sidetracked a little.  My father felt that fashion design wasn't a stable career so he enrolled me in business school.  Following college, I got the obligatory job that turned into a career where I sometimes made very good money (sometimes, not so much) but endured crazy hours, incredibly rude people and slowly lost the energy for and love of all things crafty. Enter my husband.  He'd been suggesting for years that I sign up for a class at a local art school but I'd never seriously considered it (difficult so squeeze in with an 80 hour a week job and a family).  Finally, I found myself between jobs, burned out and ready to make some changes.  He called me up one afternoon and told me he'd signed me up for a tour of our local art school the next day.  I went for the tour and decided on the spot to enroll.  That was on a Friday and classes started on Monday.  Looking back, that does seem a bit crazy....  If I'd known then how difficult it would be, I never would have done it.  

Five years later, I finally graduated as the oldest student in my program.  I learned during school, that the creative work that I'd loved as a child was more important to me than I'd realized.  It feeds my soul and makes me a much happier person.  I've been graduated for a few months now.  My senior thesis collection still makes me nauseous to look at, not only because of the incredible amount of work and time that went into it but also because my original ideas were changed so much that the final project doesn't really have any of my initial vision.  I learned a valuable lesson from that, though.  I learned that it is critical for any creative person to know when to accept ideas and constructive criticism from others, and when to stand firm and tell them to go to hell.  In the end, when your name is attached to a work, you need to be proud of it.

My thesis collection ended up traveling to New Zealand to be part of the World of Wearable Art show in Wellington.  I'd never heard of WOW until halfway through my senior year, the director of our fashion school asked me to consider submitting my collection.  WOW is a juried competition that attracts artists and designers from around the world every year.  Instead of a fashion show, the "garments" are shown in a theatrical performance that's a cross between a Broadway show and Cirque du Soleil.  Everything from acrobats and clowns to traditional Maori chants and dances are included.  43,000 people see the show over it's ten day run (far more than ever would have seen it at my university's senior fashion show).  Following the run of the show, my garments then went to the WOW museum in Nelson, New Zealand where another 100,000 people will probably see it over the next year.  Kind of cool for something that still makes me nauseous ; ).

My goal this year is to start my own business.  Seeing how much my work was changed by instructors, made me realize that I need to have control of my creative process.  I also realized that the last five years of 20 plus hour days of working, needs to stop.  I want a life outside of work and to spend time with my family who've been incredible supportive of all this nonsense.  I hope that someone else out there might be inspired to make a major life change to do what they've always dreamed of.  I'd love to hear from you.

Don't worry, the rest of my posts wont be so long.  I just wanted to introduce myself and welcome you.  Hopefully, you'll check back often and watch as my business grows.