Art Institute Student Shows Collection at New York Fashion Week

The little girl who used to sketch in the corner of her father’s pizzeria will be showing her Art Institute of Pittsburgh senior collection at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. And by all accounts, no one is surprised. Romina Vairo was one of 12 finalists chosen from a national pool to represent their schools at Lincoln Center in New York City on Feb. 17. Many art institutes – like ones in New York and San Francisco – have two students who were selected. Vairo is the only one from Pittsburgh. “I definitely brought my A-game,” says Vairo, who graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh with a fashion design degree in December 2014. Photo: semi formal dresses brisbane

Path to success Vairo’s artistic ambitions were evident early. She had to entertain herself when her family worked at their pizzeria in the heart of Oakland. She drew detailed sketches on an order pad of everything from people walking in the door to the city landscape. Occasionally, she made sculptures out of pizza dough. “All she ever wanted for presents were colored pencils, stickers, and art supplies,” her mother Janice Vairo remembers. When Vairo and a friend designed leg warmers, her mother knew she would be involved with fashion or design. “She even designed appliques to personalize the leg warmers,” her mother says. Vairo’s serious interest in fashion design began when she was a student atOakland Catholic High School. Never interested in going to school dances, Vairo loved designing and illustrating the dresses her friends wanted to wear to them. “All my free time was dedicated to staying in my school’s art studio and really honing my craft,” Vairo says. “A passion formed without me even realizing it, and by my senior year, I knew this was what I truly wanted to pursue.” At 18, Vairo moved overseas to attend the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design. No stranger to Italy, Vairo visited while growing up and speaks the language fluently. A big art and history buff who’s been obsessed with Leonardo da Vinci since age five, Vairo saw the chance to live and study in Florence as a dream realized. Unfortunately, Vairo had to leave school with one year left due to financial issues and Italy’s lack of student loans. “It was a burden to know that I had to leave a great school,” Vairo says, “and I felt as if my dreams were stolen from me. I doubted myself.” The influence of Pittsburgh But at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Vairo started her successful senior collection, which took almost a year from inception to execution. Initially, it was a graduation project, made up of four outfits total with three garments per outfit. When New York Fashion Week reviewed Vairo’s audition package, they chose only two of the completed looks, and picked four outfits from her illustration board. “It really made me push my skills to the limit. I created a lot of my own textiles in this collection, so it was almost double the work,” she says. Vairo’s strong work ethic is one of the attributes that people use to describe her. Her best friend Sarah Roberts describes her as modest and down to earth, and says that “she’s so ambitious, you tell her to make a three-look collection, [and] she’ll make seven to complete her vision.” Pittsburgh has influenced Vairo’s designs. She’s used photographs from the steel mill history as inspiration, as well as artwork from local artists as color inspiration for fabrics. She cites three Pittsburghers as design mentors: Rikki Hommel and Casey Droege, professors at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and European fashion designer Diana Misetic, who’s based in Shadyside and with whom she interned. Hommel calls Vairo “a talented artist with unbelievable execution, profound attention to detail, and top-notch craftsmanship.” The artist as mad scientist Vairo has a colorful personality. “I’m a very simple human being with a mad scientist kind of brain,” she says. Once, her mother asked how she came up with her fashion designs. Vairo paused and said, “See those trees over there? You see trees, but I see a blouse.” Surprisingly, her personal style is simple. Because she attended private schools, she wore a uniform for years, which inadvertently set her style for life. She was also a tomboy growing up, so she just wore T-shirts and basketball shorts whenever possible. Years later, still wears them. When she leaves the house, however, she puts on simple layers of black, gray, or neutral clothing paired with her black Timberlands or black Doc Martens. “Some people think it’s a style statement, but it is honestly just the easiest thing to put together,” Vairo says. “I’d rather spend my time and energy creating beautiful clothes instead of picking out outfits.” Collection Vairo’s collection for Fashion Week is called Frozen Bone, which combines fluid lines of draping and soft structural tailoring and is inspired by French film actress Sarah Bernhardt from the late 1800s. “Her beauty was versatile as she played both male and female roles,” says Vairo, “which is why the mood of this collection plays on a slight androgynous note. The voluminous silhouettes and minimalist touches are a result of skeletal and muscular formations found within the human anatomy to pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci. The design focus is meant to illustrate the quiet, chilling embrace of winter and all its elemental formations. This collection showcases the silent and translucent beauty of women.” Vairo created a textile comprised of bones that she morphed in Photoshop to create a pattern, which then has a plastic textile on top to soften the print and create another dimension. She took a big risk with this collection, as “most collections show cohesion with the fabrics that they use. [My] collection is held together by a concept, a unified vibe that is meant to make you think twice,” she says. Designers can go their entire careers without making it to Fashion Week; to be able to showcase at the age of 23 doesn’t seem quite real. Vairo can’t wait to see her collection come to life. “As designers, we put countless hours into our collections and even though it takes only 10 minutes for the collection to walk down the runway,” she says, “it is priceless.” More info: http://www.graziadressau.com/school-formal-dresses-au