Meet our senior fashion designer, Laura Shell!

This is Laura’s second year at Marist, after she traveled around the world studying her passion. She is excited to establish herself as a designer in the industry and continues to develop her personal design style.

Age: 23
Hometown: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Favorite color: I don't really have a favorite color.
“I like to keep trying things out. Sometimes I’ll keep to a certain color scheme, for example my collection now is greys, neutrals, and black. I’ve designed things before that are colors of the rainbow, I’ve don’t all black, then I’ve done pastel colors. I’m still experimenting with what I want to be as a designer.”
Favorite designers: Alexander McQueen, Philosophy by Di Alberta, Marc Jacobs
Why did you choose Marist for fashion?
“I was attending Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute in Florence, Italy. There weren’t enough girls in the program anymore, so they suggested I transfer to Marist. The difference between studying fashion in Italy and Marist is if you study fashion at Marist, and you study abroad in Florence, you’re not allowed to take draping, pattern making, anything that has to do with design, but I was an LDM student so that is where I learned my draping and patternmaking and drawing.”
Why fashion design?
“I was at Barnes and Noble looking at interior design books because when I had stopped going to school for graphic design I was going to go into interior design. And those books all happen to be right next to each other—graphic, interior, and fashion. I saw the fashion books and they just caught my eye and I spent hours in Barnes and Noble looking through the fashion books. It was really intriguing. I decided that this was something I wanted to try out, to go for. So I guess you could say it was just books that inspired me.
What are your essentials for a day in the lab?
“I always bring music, patterns, scissors, all that stuff. I always bring food. Caffeine for sure, to keep us up. Sometimes we bring pajamas, because we change into them cuz were here all night, and slippers, they’re essential to bring with us.”