Student stories:

Mary Elizabeth

and Leah Ashley

After meeting on the way to a pattern class, FIDM Fashion Design Students Mary Elizabeth and Leah Ashley partnered up to launch their own company, Fabulous, Inc., which offers personal shopping, closet organization, event planning, and interior decoration.

Mary decided that FIDM was the school for her after observing friends who attended FIDM.
“I loved what they were doing. I knew this was a capacity in which I could really shine,” she explains. Leah, on the other hand, attributes the weather to what first drew her to consider FIDM, especially the Southern California campuses: “Let’s be honest, who doesn’t love the beach?”

Fashion Design seemed to be the perfect area of study for both Mary and Leah because, as Mary reveals, they had “always been fascinated by glamour. We simply adore clothes and designers! Upon beginning FIDM, we finally felt like we had met our people- people that knew the impact of Tom Ford for Gucci or could appreciate the architecture of Balenciaga. So Fashion Design seemed like the most obvious choice for both of us. I love our instructors, the magazines, the vintage Vogues, and the divine Trend Reports!”

Mary finds time to actively participate as a member of the Student Council, while both girls have also teamed up with some other FIDM Students to revamp and recreate the student publication, The Mode.

The stylish duo has great plans brewing for their future as well. “We will be expanding our business to include a television series, entitled Fabulous on a Budget. It will showcase our trials and tribulations of being inexpensively fabulous all the while attempting to create an empire.”

For more about Mary and Leah and how you too can be fabulous on a budget, check out their website at www.myspace.com/fabulousonabudget.