Fashion designer hits stride - at 13
At the age of 9, Isabella Rose Taylor - a painter since she was 3 - took a week-long sewing class with an eye toward incorporating textiles into her artwork. She quickly discovered a love for fashion design as well, taking the class twice more that summer. Now, at 13, her line is debuting at Nordstrom stores this fall and she's set to hold her first show at the New York Fashion Week.
"It just started out as a really fun hobby and it grew into a business over the years," Taylor says at her Austin, Texas, home, where she's converted one room into a studio and another into an office.
With inspiration from an abstract mixed-media painting she did when she was younger that includes reds, grays, blues, mustard yellow and neutral earthy tones, Taylor created a fall line with a "street grunge vibe" and "modern hippie" inspiration. "It all started with the colors of the painting for me," she says.