Michelle Obama Gives a Shout-out to Designer Maria Cornejo at the White House
Tuesday was a big day for the fashion community as First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the first Fashion Education Workshop in Washington D.C. The day-long affair brought together students from all over the country with the heads of Parsons The New School of Design, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Pratt Institute of Technology as well as titans of industry including Anna Wintour (who introduced the First Lady) and a smattering of top designers including Diane von Furstenberg, Jason Wu, Narciso Rodriguez, J. Crew’s Jenna Lyons and more. Here, we get a first-hand account from Chilean-born, New York-based designer Maria Cornejo, whose easy-to-wear creations for her label Zero + Maria Cornejo, have garnered a loyal following (including Christy Turlington, Tilda Swinton), for the past 16 years.
Yahoo Style: The first thing we have to discuss is how the First Lady singled you and Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx) out in her speech, how amazing!
Maria Cornejo: It was very emotional. Honestly I was floored. She told my story, called me her friend, and said that she admired my work. I thought, Does she have the right person? [Laughs]. It was very emotional, I still feel emotional about it. To be recognized like that…I was not expecting that at all. I had to look up the transcript so I could send it to my family.
YS: What a lovely tribute. Are you two close?
MC: We have met maybe four or five times. I admire her very much. I relate to her. We are both relatively the same age and have two kids. Working moms. But she has always been very supportive. She would wear the clothes even before they were in office. When she did her interview with Vogue and she was wearing my designs, she went on the record as saying so, not many people would do that.
YS: How was the workshop?
MC: I went down the day before with my daughter, Bibi Cornejo Borthwick [a photographer who supplied the images seen here], my design director, Dane, who has been with me for seven years, and my PR Director, Kyle. We were able to go to the White House that evening and set up. We were joking that it was like going back to school. The students from Parsons were setting up their origami sculptures, the designers were setting up their stations. It was quite special to be there!
YS: Kind of like A Night at the Museum!
MC: Yes! The next day the kids arrived around 10am. There were five separate sections [entrepreneurship, construction, inspiration, journalism, and wearable technology]. We were in the construction section with the Gap, Lela Rose. There were seven kids per table, and over 150 kids total. It made me quite nervous. More nervous than a show! With a show you know what you’re going to get, good or bad, it’s out there. But with the kids you really want to make an impression.
YS: So what did you show them?
MC: We used simple geometry. Just simple shapes, like creating a circle dress on a mannequin. When I launched my business this was how I started, with four basic shapes. So I wanted to show them that and also get the point across of being patient and seeing something evolve. With celebrity culture so prominent these days, everything is so immediate. I was telling them that Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’m 52-years-old and it’s taken me a long time to get where I am.
YS: Were there any closing remarks?
MC: Yes, the First Lady spoke again around 8pm. You know she was in a receiving line all day! For hours, she received every single person. So gracious. But yes, at the end she talked about the importance of fashion and how it’s such a big industry that employs a lot of people. And how fashion can give you strength and courage to go about your day, walk into any situation. How it has really helped her to go from country to country for all of those meetings with world leaders. She really nailed it on the head. It was a wonderful day.
