We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lucille Long. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lucille below.

Lucille, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Fashion is such a multi-faceted field. You can as little as you need to or as much as you want to. Although in my adventures through school and life I’ve found that it’s helpful to be multi-talented. I’ve drawn since I can remember, and although I had built up a pretty good handle of drawing, I think I hit at wall at some point. I’ve taken three fashion illustration classes in school and they all helped me with proportions, but the most recent class helped me with speed and style. My drawing skills finally went past the wall and I really feel I have a good command over it. I have quite a unique background thanks to my diverse education. I had many struggles getting access to school in the beginning and some health struggles further along the way. The pandemic and economy messed up quite a bit too. But I completed my AAS in Fashion Design at Salt Lake Community College in 2020, and I should be receiving my AAS in Technical Apparel this year. I did take a couple of pattern classes at Portland Fashion Institute in 2023, but after I got my Fashion Design degree I was also able to teach myself things like pattern grading, and I started pushing the boundaries with my knitwear pattern skills just by experimenting and creating, then I graded all of those patterns. Later, I ended up taking two grading classes and I pretty much got it down to a science! I think it’s great to have a strong school foundation, with teachers that really show you step by step and help you along the way. But once you’ve got that, you can go far. But I did do one semester at Parsons Paris, and I was exposed to a different, more artistic side of fashion. I learned about the history of couture, Parisian fashion, and fashion as a fine art, rather than just a technical skill. However, I do really value the technical craftsmanship, which I think was best emphasized at my community college. I did learn a lot about the Adobe Creative Suite at Parsons though! I was already decent at Photoshop and Illustrator but that semester really taught me a lot more than I thought was possible. So now I really lean into my graphic design side. A certain teacher there also really pushed me out of my comfort zone with my fashion illustration skills, and I’m so much better and more versatile with drawing now, so I’m grateful for that. Now I’m currently working on finishing my bachelors through CSUN and they’ve been really understanding with my health needs. I’m incredibly grateful for that. I’ve also learned a lot about consumer sciences from them! Understanding what makes people buy and consumer rights. I guess my point is I’ve become very well rounded in fashion design skills and knowledge, from drawing, sewing, patternmaking and draping, to history and art, to graphic design, the technical and product design and sourcing side, to the business and marketing side. I’m really proud of myself with how much I’ve learned and how capable I am.

Lucille, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been drawing clothes since I can remember. I suppose drawing was my first love, but I had a babysitter and a grandma who both showed me some basics of sewing and crochet. Growing up though I didn’t really know how to sew. I took some basic fashion summer camps, and as a teenager I got a sewing machine and a mannequin. I didn’t know what I was doing but I would drape stuff and sew stuff together. And somehow, I did seem to create some semblance of clothes! I even wore them to school. Eventually I did community college and started making more advanced garments. I’ve traveled a lot and I raved a lot in college, and those experiences really inspired a lot of the pieces I made. I ran an Etsy for a few years selling rave clothes and accessories, I worked some events too. I think what sets me apart is my unique perspective and skillset. I wear many hats and I always have ideas that you don’t see anywhere else. I make a lot of showstoppers; they’re flashy and eclectic. I love making pieces that make people smile. For my clients I love making something in their imagination come to life. I love dreaming up ideas with them and working through the process of how it will happen creating it. I love making custom clothing. For other types of work, I enjoy just filling in gaps where someone may say, “I need someone who knows how to do this,” and 90% of time I usually can do it because I am so versatile as a fashion professional. I just did my first event at the Utah Film Center doing fashion sketching and it was so fun! I guess one thing to know about my brand would be that I’m always learning new things and creating something interesting.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’m always nervous to talk about this in professional settings because our culture tends to favour not talking about your struggles. But I’ve had everything from family struggles, financial struggles, health struggles, and not fitting in. I can’t give all the details, but I didn’t have the opportunity to do a bachelors when I was younger. Especially not living in state that even has one in fashion. Having just an associates made it hard to get jobs. I had quite a few traumatizing things happen to me, and I ended up moving around a lot and starting over a lot. Because of my experiences, it made it difficult to situate anywhere. Things just didn’t always go right, and there were times I gave up fashion due to lack of work and opportunities, lack of sales on my Etsy, not fitting in in school and having a variety of health issues. I’m also neurodivergent and I really struggle with noise sensitivity. It’s made it super hard to find a place I can live and sleep. For about six months I didn’t sleep almost at all because I moved into a noisy place in LA, and it was so expensive too! It got really bad with my health, it was scary! Being treated worse for being different is a serious problem in society, and I hope to create art and fashion that really illustrates my experience. The point is, the journey to get my bachelors degree has taken many years. Even while facing many obstacles, I never gave up. I took breaks, but I always came back to fashion. I’m so close now to finishing my education, I’m really lucky my university and teachers have been empathetic to me and my struggles. But it’s not like I’ve come up empty handed either. I have a wealth of knowledge, skills, and experiences having lived all over the world and studied at different schools. Even when I took a break from fashion for a while I was studying chemistry, and that made me really interested in textile chemistry for sustainable fashion design. I’ve made nylon in a lab as well, it was a really cool experience. I also have three associates degrees, two are fashion related, and I should be getting my bachelors next year if everything goes well! So I’m excited. I think in a roundabout way, my struggles actually make me a very desirable candidate for any job with my unique perspective and stacked skillset.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish there were the resources there are now when I was first starting out! Although maybe it’s good that AI wasn’t around when I did my first couple of degrees. Then you have to learn how to use textbooks. But throughout the years there have been more and more YouTube videos uploaded, and usually you can find what you’re looking for in some way. Sometimes though, I still get stuck. But I can usually figure out what I need to, even if I have to do something a different way. When I was a teenager I didn’t even think to use a book for sewing for some reason, or even videos. I really benefits from hands on, step by step instruction. When I finally went to community college, having someone there, showing us step by step in person was so helpful. And not every school does that! Some of the top fashion schools in the world don’t teach you much about sewing or patternmaking. It can be very conceptual. Sometimes it’s very project dependent. But I am a bottom up kind of person and I really appreciate the highly technical, step by step pedagogy of my community college. For me, that foundation gives me the freedom to experiment. I find that my attention to detail makes me a good teacher too! Throughout my educational journey, I’ve had to learn how to learn a lot. Finding textbooks, online PDFs, videos, etc. really helps. I’d say I just learned to be resourceful, but also having that foundational education really helped.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lissylabelle.com
• Instagram: lissylabelle
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lissylabelledesigns/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucillelong/
• Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucillelong/
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lissylabelle/
  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lissylabelledesigns

Image Credits

Dave Gurr, Ryan Houston, Christi Michelle