Become designer fashion steps

Just over a year after launching his own fashion firm, designer Alan Del Rosario is earning a reputation for having big league talent.

If first impressions are lasting impressions, Alan Del Rosario's designs promise to have longtime allure.

Gabrielle Zuccaro, owner of Bleu, a trendy clothing boutique on Los Angeles, CA's La Brea Avenue, can recall the exact moment when she fell in love with Del Rosario's designs. It was last May when sales representatives from Studio 10, a contemporary wear showroom in downtown Los Angeles' New Mart, brought Zuccaro several new samples to peruse from the various lines they represent. Zuccaro carefully looked over the groupings, and then spotted some pieces from Del Rosario's collection. "I went crazy," she admits. "I didn't order anything that they originally came here to show me. I only ordered his pieces."

So far, Zuccaro's instincts have paid off. Since she first ordered Del Rosario's debut collection, the retailer has had trouble keeping her racks stocked with the merchandise. One particular item, a mermaid skirt done in a lighter-than-air, iridescent tissue silk organza (Del Rosario refers to the material as the "millennium fabric"), has been flying off the store racks at $385 a pop. "I've re-ordered it a couple of times," Zuccaro says.

And it's not just the mermaid skirt that has Zuccaro envisioning a grand future for the 30-something designer. It's his overall style. "I think that he's better than most top designers. I think that he's up there with Valentino and Armani," she enthuses. "His cuts are fabulous, his fabrications are beautiful, and his designs are amazing."

Likewise, Lisa Bojarski, who represents Del Rosario's line at Studio 10, says that one of the reasons Studio 10 decided to make room for the newcomer in its showroom was the recognition of his potential to become a top-notch designer. 'From the very beginning, we realized that Alan's ideas are so innovative and unique," Bojarski recalls. "He's a fashion leader, His collection can't really be compared to anyone else's [work]; there is nothing like it out there."

For Del Rosario, who is in the middle of only his third season, these are heady times indeed. When he showed his first collection last spring during a small designer trade show at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, NY, he didn't book appointments, but buyers found him nevertheless. "We got great reaction," he says. "The exposure was terrific."

Since then, Del Rosario has been picking up a base of trendy, high-end specialty stores in major metropolitan areas throughout the United States. A few international retailers -- in Canada, Brazil and Hong Kong -- have placed orders or have shown interest as well. And department stores aren't immune to the buzz. Bloomingdale's is reportedly interested in ordering Del Rosario's spring line, while Saks Fifth Avenue is now pondering which items it wants to place in its stores as well as its catalog.

The Cross-Pacific Quest for a Creative Profession

The enthusiastic response to Del Rosario's collections is all the more impressive when you consider that he began his career half a world away (in his native Philippines) and in a far different profession than the fickle fashion industry (civil engineering). "Designing isn't a serious career choice for someone in the Philippines," explains Del Rosario. "You [are encouraged] to go into an engineering field, accounting or a medical field, It's a cultural thing. I love numbers, so I went into civil engineering."

Yet Del Rosario realized that he found something lacking -- some creative spark -- in his chosen profession. Soon he quit engineering to pursue a career in the entertainment field. "I came to [the United States] to take some classes in directing, film photography, whatever," he recounts. A friend suggested that he tour the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM). Says Del Rosario: "I didn't have a clue that I wanted to be a designer when I was a child. ... But when I [stepped into FIDM], it just hit me."

After one year at FIDM, Del Rosario won the Bob Mackie Scholarship, which allowed him into the school's advanced design program. Then, after graduating, Del Rosario worked at various design firms in the Los Angeles area, including Judy Knapp, Spirit and Fashion Resource. The experience helped flesh out his own fashion sense. "When you work for different companies, you have limitations," he says. "They have a certain market that they're aiming at, so you try to mold yourself around that. However, when I started my own company, I began to follow my own instinct."

That instinct is both sophisticated and edgy. Del Rosario's collection, which averages 70 to 100 pieces per season, is a fusion of different fabrics and innovative construction techniques. His holiday collection revealed this blending: black wool dresses with faux leather sleeves that are cut away at the elbow; lipstick red, duponi silk tailored jackets trimmed with red faux fur collars; ensembles of hot pink tulle tube tops and asymmetrically layered skirts; and silver ball gowns with tops and skirts made of a unique open-weave silk. Del Rosario calls the latter style his "Cinderella" dress, but it is Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, when she is caught between her glittering finery and her threadbare duds, thanks to edges that are left raw on the open-weave silk.

A Focus on Innovative Fabrics and Construction

Fabrics are important to Del Rosario. He works with three Los Angeles-based fabric vendors that were willing to take a chance on his fledging company. "They've been very supportive of me," Del Rosario says. "I'm very fortunate to have found them, because most fabric companies have 3,000-yard minimums for production, and ... I'm not quite there yet to consume that kind of yardage."

The fabric vendors also work with Del Rosario to develop fabric designs. For the mermaid skirt fabric, for instance, Del Rosario wanted tiny mirrors sewn into the tissue silk. In other instances, the fabric firms have embroidered sequins and beads onto frothy organza, and even flocked tiny flowers on fabric to create the appearance of embroidery.

Of course, there are times when Del Rosario is simply inspired by what he happens to stumble across. He found the open-weave silk for his Cinderella dress languishing in the back of a closet at the offices of one of his fabric vendors. "They were not getting any reaction to it -- nothing," Del Rosario remembers. "I saw it and thought it was an incredible fabric, so I requested that they make it in my colors, and used it in the collection."

Not surprisingly, other manufacturers have now begun demanding the open-weave silk, just as they have begun using the tissue silk "millennium" fabric. However, Del Rosario says he's not concerned with knockoffs, noting: "I'm already on to the next thing. My spring line is completely different than the holiday collection."

It's not only his fabric that keeps Del Rosario one step ahead of his fashion competitors; the construction of his line is innovative too. Those who know Del Rosario credit his engineering background for the profusion of gathers, darts, puckers, tucks and pleats in the collection, often giving simple designs a unique -- and tailored -- twist. Del Rosario says that much of the inspiration for creating the line's silhouettes is internal. "I have a tendency in the middle of the night to just wake up and drape," he confesses.

Understanding the Business and the Individual

While Del Rosario relishes the fashion industry's creative energy (even midnight draping sessions), he understands the unglamorous, pragmatic side as well. "I was exposed to the business side of fashion when I worked for other manufacturers. If I hadn't had that experience -- if I would have tried this right out of college -- I think I would have failed," he observes. "The reality is that this is a business, and it's not enough that I can design, and make something great. Even if I have incredible sales, if I don't produce the line, if I don't know how to produce it, then I'd fail. Those orders would just sit there as paperwork."

Del Rosario, who financed his business with a silent partner, is adamant about monitoring his production, and carefully selected the Los Angeles area contractors who produce 85 percent of his collection. (The remainder is produced in-house.)