Kristen Nuttall has already had two fashion internships and several years of retail experience, but winning a chance to work alongside a New York designer was a major coup.
Nuttall, 21, a senior in Colorado State University’s apparel and merchandising program, recently won a student design competition sponsored by Fashion group International of Denver. The prize is an internship with Sylvia Heisel at her Seventh Avenue workrooms and showroom this summer.
Two dresses Nuttall designed impressed the Fashion Group judges, including Heisel. Each garment included multiple fabrics, which was a creative turn on Nuttall’s part. When she was doing an internship in California last summer, the company went out of business shortly after she arrived. The owner told her to help herself to some fabrics, and that stash turned into the dresses she hand sewed for the student competition.
“I love mixing colors and fabrics,” says Nuttall, who is from Centennial. “I worked really hard on the pieces, but was really surprised and excited to win.”
To complete her CSU degree, Nuttall needs a 12-week internship, which she wants to do in Europe. She’s attracted to the idea of hand sewing and hopes to find a couture house where she can see the process firsthand. “That would be a dream job,” she says.
Nuttall was originally a business major at CSU but had a good friend in the design program and decided to put a portfolio together and apply for the apparel classes. “I fell in love with it,” she says.
