Grabbing stray fabric off the floor, Gloria Richardson was making last-minute rounds in the sewing room before she left for the day.
An assistant dresser to Celine Dion in "A New Day ...," this is one day Richardson doesn't have to race across town to get to work. Dion is off this particular week. "We're done here at 1:30," Richardson said. "I usually have to be there by 2:30. If I'm lucky I can make it to Jack In the Box."
Not that Richardson is complaining. A longtime worker in the costume and wardrobe industry who received her master's degree in costume design from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Richardson is in her element at both jobs.
"I can teach them shortcuts that can make things work," Richardson said, referring to students in her basic sewing class at the International Academy of Design and Technology.
"They can take the skills they learn here and turn that into 50 to 100 jobs. It will snowball and take you places you never thought you'd go. I never thought I'd be in Las Vegas working for Celine Dion."
Nor did she expect to be an adjunct professor at the academy, the only school in Nevada that offers an associate's or bachelor's degree in fashion design.
"We were very excited when this opened," Richardson said.
So were the students.
"I almost went back to New York. But when I found out this was coming I decided to stay here," said 26-year-old Patricia Samaniego, who began her schooling at the esteemed Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She left after two years because her husband in the military was transferred overseas.
Samaniego said she would like to work as part of a couture team for a designer like Christian Lacroix, or as a stylist at fashion shows or for magazines. But she'd be plenty content to explore backstage opportunities at production shows on the Strip. "Give me beads and feathers and I'll be happy," said Samaniego, a big fan of Bob Mackie, the costume designer notorious for his Cher dresses and showgirl costumes at "Jubilee."
"I also enjoy Galiano, Jean Paul Gaultier for their theatrical interpretations of fashion. Oscar de la Renta a lot of his designs are timeless. Alexander McQueen the way he designs is outrageous. He's very avant-garde."
Learning the ropes
Samaniego learned her sewing and design skills as a child while spending summers in Mexico working beside her two grandmothers on an 18th-century sewing machine.
For 35-year-old student Kelly Cronin from upstate New York, this is her first foray into fashion design. She has been working the retail end of fashion for 17 years and works for Saks Fifth Avenue at the Fashion Show mall.
"I had the inspiration right out of high school," Cronin said. "It's just once you get into retail, everything has been advancement and advancement.
"Around Thanksgiving, I was looking around for school and didn't see anything in Nevada, Arizona even. I would have to go to California, which I didn't want to do."
After seeing a commercial for the school, Cronin signed up, never having heard of IADT. She had wanted to attend FIT, but it has a two-year waiting list and international candidates.
"I just took it and ran with it," Cronin said. "I spent my first couple of weeks learning textiles and fashion-design principles."
While it's too soon to determine the school's educational validity, IADT is off to a successful start in numbers. Seventy of its 200 students are enrolled in fashion design.
The private school is one of 10 in Canada and the United States. It is a sister school to Le Cordon Bleu, which opened last year in Summerlin and is sending off its first graduating class.
Both operations are part of Career Education Corporation, a provider of private, post-secondary education that has 81 schools, colleges and universities planted in Canada, France, the United States and United Kingdom.
The right stuff
CEC brought in IADT after surveying the area for interest and opportunity. The school doesn't carry the esteem of such schools as Parsons School of Design or FIT, but is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools and is expected to help students enter the industry at varying levels.
Its other programs at the Henderson campus, near I-215 and Green Valley Parkway, include interior design and visual communication. The cost is $300 per credit.
"This is the first school on the West Coast," said Jason Smith, president of the academy. "It's just a great destination -- the population, the growth, the economy.
"I expected to get a lot of younger people, but to be honest, it hasn't happened. There's a lot of twentysomethings in the school."
JayVee Sarmiento, 19, is one of the few students attending IADT right out of high school. He studied fashion design during his junior and senior years at Durango High School and says he wants to go into fashion forecasting.
Thirty-two-year-old Kathy Kit had been taking an occasional continuing education course at UNLV and has looked into other design schools, but chose to stay in Las Vegas with her husband.
"My goal is to design accessories, though working in the bridal industry I find there's a need for unique bridal dresses," Kit said. "Everything I'm learning is going to apply, and because they have people who work in the industry they can give us pointers."
Referring to one teacher who has her own T-shirt line: "She talked about everything from getting her trademark and logo and working on up. You're getting a lot of hands on."
Growing industry?
Richardson, in addition to being an assistant dresser, is a fabric dye artist for Dion's show. She teaches basic design and construction, sewing and how to read and cut patterns.
"Most of the students see themselves as designers or heading up a shop," Richardson said.
Overall, she said, "Las Vegas is just now getting more respect in design elements. We're starting to get more stars so we're starting to get more styles in town. You've got a lot of rock stars moving here. Napier did the original 'EFX' and he did 'Cats' on Broadway."
Regarding Dion, Richardson explained, "It's a huge money show, huge house, high quality. For the $225 expensive seats up front, that's somebody who's going to be close enough to know if we screw up."
Cronin, who is looking strictly at fashion design, said she may head back East when she finishes school. She'd be more apt to stay in Las Vegas if a fashion industry developed here.
"There's nowhere to buy quality fabric," Cronin said. "You have to look to Los Angeles or New York or out of the country. I can't just go to JoAnne fabrics."
Meital Grantz, who owns and operates two upscale fashion boutiques in Las Vegas -- the Talulah G boutiques at Boca Park Fashion Village and the Fashion Show mall -- is familiar with Cronin's predicament.
"If you want to make it in design and manufacture it here, you'd have to go to California," Grantz, a former New Yorker, said.
The manufacturing end of the industry in Las Vegas could develop someday, she said. But it might take some time.
"Even Los Angeles, which has had a garment industry for years and years, has just started promoting design."
Even so, Grantz, who said she would like to move into the design end of the industry, welcomes IADT's classes that will provide opportunity for designers.
"There isn't a school like that in Las Vegas," Grantz said. "It's great to have that option. There are a lot of up-and-coming designers in this town. There are a lot of talented people."
High design
Kim Mervine, president and chief executive officer of the high-end consignment shop La Belle Boutique, Inc., also welcomes the school.
"When I was running Escada I was always interested in getting interns to work in the boutique," Mervine said. "I posted at UNLV and I couldn't get anyone interested in coming to learn."
Mervine worked four years with Escada in New York City and at its store in the Forum Shops at Caesars for two years before opening La Belle Boutique on South Eastern Avenue and living out her lifelong dream.
While she doesn't want to water down anyone's hopes and ambitions, Mervine said that launching a fashion line is more difficult than it seems.
"It's the equivalent of somebody wanting to go to Hollywood and becoming a movie star," Mervine said. "I would never tell someone not to pursue it. But it's only a handful of people who become Marc Jacobs or Donna Karan."
Still, Mervine said, Las Vegas is a good place to be.
"We have the highest concentration of design in the smallest square miles of anywhere in the world," Mervine said. "This city is becoming a fashion mecca that rivals Madison Avenue or Beverly Hills. All of the top designers recognize Las Vegas as a key market."
Samaniego said she plans to wait patiently for the fashion industry to blossom in Las Vegas -- as did high-end restaurants and nightclubs.
"It's a little bit early to see it," Samaniego said. "As the years go on, it's going to pick up. It's not L.A., San Francisco or New York, but it will be and I'm staying here because I want a piece of it."
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