Having attended a four-year college and worked for three-plus years, Bryna Hubbs was “focused and driven” when she arrived at FIDM to get her degree in the Merchandise Product Development Professional Designation Program. “Because I knew why I was at FIDM and what I wanted to learn, I was able to pull from the program the elements that I needed to succeed in the industry,” she says. And succeed she has! Bryna is the Owner/Designer of her self-named leather handbag company, Bryna Nicole, that’s causing a stir on both coasts.

San Francisco-based Bryna heard about FIDM through co-workers at a specialty boutique, who were attending the college. “The opportunity to develop my creative side intrigued me. Once I decided that I wanted to start my own line, it seemed like a natural step to go to school for a year to learn in more detail about the fashion industry,” she remembers.

Now Bryna is living her dream. “I love designing. It’s the biggest reward when I’ve been working on a design for weeks, and it comes to me in leather form and it’s perfectly how I envisioned it to be! I also love having to keep up with market trends and fashion news. It’s not a bad deal to have to read WWD and Vogue for work!”

The year she spent earning her degree at FIDM taught Bryna skills she didn’t even think she needed to know. “Obviously it taught me to draw and to sew and to make a pattern,” she says, “but I also took a Branding class that has helped me approach creating my own brand and getting my name out there in a more knowledgeable way. I took a Marketing class that has helped me define the desired demographic and to efficiently target it.” Now that she’s out on her own, Bryna finds herself putting the talents she acquired at FIDM to daily use—and making news doing it!