MELISSA HALTERMAN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Studio art senior Sarah Collins creates clothing at her house Jan. 19. Collins designs clothes and sells them to local stores, such as Buffalo Exchange and Sounds Fresh Records & Clothing.

Student designer uses humor to create unique style

While most college students constantly have the F-word running through their minds, studio art senior Sarah Collins has an unhealthy obsession with many F-words. Her favorites are "fashion," "fancy," "fun" and "fresh."

Although she has been making and designing clothes for herself and her friends for years, it wasn't until last summer that Collins began marketing and selling her line ÷ Fancy, The *F* Word ÷ to stores like Buffalo Exchange, ZOè and Sounds Fresh Records & Clothing.

But this self-motivated and innovative young designer is still shocked by her success.

"I love to see people wearing my stuff. I get so stoked. It makes me really, really happy. I love to go talk to people. That's like my favorite thing ever," Collins said.

MELISSA HALTERMAN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Studio art senior Sarah Collins is a clothes designer who says she sees her work at least twice per day around campus. She said she makes more miniskirts than anything and gets a rush out of seeing people in her designs.

Collins also said she usually sees a couple of people per day wearing her stuff.

She says about 75 percent of the clothes she makes are miniskirts.

"The staple is definitely miniskirts. They're my favorite thing to make, whether they're puffy or frilly, with bright colors, or all different kinds of miniskirts," Collins said.

Her clothing and accessories are unique, because they are basically one of a kind. Collins tends to take vintage or used clothing and revamp it.

"My stuff is not basic and everyday. People will hopefully notice it. It's something that you would own that's kind of unique and really fun. Everything is one-of-a-kind. All of the materials are vintage or stuff I find at thrift stores," Collins said.

She has even used vintage tablecloths, old army jackets and pieces of dresses for her designs. She adds flavor by combining fabrics and styles that wouldn't normally go together. For example, ZOè carries a pink, satiny miniskirt with decorative Mexican hat fringe and an applique cartoon bird for $36.

Some of her other items are silk-screened tank tops of random designs like sheep and broccoli, fingerless gloves, scarves and decorated yoga pants. She has also just begun to make little handbags.

Lissa Marinaro, owner of ZOè, says Collins' clothing has a sense of humor.

"It's a little tongue-and-cheek, kind of flirty and girly punk," Marinaro said.

Much of her inspiration comes from vintage clothing and her friends' styles. But she began making and wearing only her own clothes because of her strong opposition to buying clothes from companies that use sweatshops.

"It's nice to know that anytime someone uses their money to buy one of my items, that's money that isn't going to go to one of the (stores that use sweatshops)," Collins said.

Because of this, Collins uses American Apparel, a sweatshop-free, wholesale company to buy all the new clothing she uses for designing the T-shirts and tank tops.

Collins' unique use of color and fabric comes from her background in studio art, where she gained extensive knowledge about design, print, color and silk screening.

While working at Buffalo Exchange for 2 1/2 years, Collins says she became really aware of clothing, fashion and, specifically, how things fit people.

"Working at Buffalo Exchange, you're thinking about clothes all the time," Collins said. "You're constantly looking at exactly how things fit people and what's hip at the moment. That's your mentality. I learned a lot from that."

Collins, or "Fancy," as her friends and family often call her, has definitely made a name for herself in Tucson. She even saw a girl wearing one of her shirts in San Francisco. But what's more important to her is that she became completely self-sufficient from her sales.

"I basically thought, this is how much I worked at Buffalo Exchange. And if I work that same amount, then I'm still able to support myself and pay my rent and stuff like that," Collins said.

She admits, however, that some weeks she's more inspired and motivated to work than others.

Even though she is a relatively new independent designer, she's had substantial publicity form the stores, and she has been involved with and featured in several of their fashion shows.

"About three weeks ago, Sounds Fresh had a really awesome fashion show. He had a DJ and break-dancers. It was awesome. The fashion shows are really fun," Collins said.

Her designs even do well against other popular brand names in the stores. ZOè has a list of people that like to be called when her stuff comes in.

"The only other things that people like to be called about are Juicy (brand clothes). It says a lot," Marinaro said.

She also occasionally holds open houses for people to buy directly from her and receive silk screening and sewing instruction. Coming soon, Fancy fashion fans will be able to buy her designs from her Web site, fancythefword.com.

After she graduates in May, she plans to move to San Francisco with a friend and open her own boutique. She envisions a versatile, fun store with employees on roller skates to reflect her favorite pastime.