Aspiring fashion designer looks ahead

MOSES LAKE - Zena Chelan Flint had about two days before the fashion show of her original designs that was her senior project at Ephrata High School. She needed another dress, but she couldn't come up with another design, not one that could be cut and sewn in a couple of days.

But Zena did have a green T-shirt, "a shirt that I had worn forever," and a piece of donated black fabric. "It was a curtain," Flint said. And within 48 hours she had a dress, with a green top cut below the bust (called an empire waist) and a black skirt.

The black dress with spaghetti straps and white trim was the result of similar repurposing, starting with more donated material and some nylon netting, the kind used for sink scrubbers. The goal was to produce a collection of about 27 dresses, following the movie title, on a budget of about $70, she said.

If Flint succeeds in her quest to become a fashion designer, it will have started there, with the repurposing of donated materials and original designs in mostly donated material.

Actually, it will have started long before high school. "I learned to sew in Russia. I was, I would say, six (years of age)," she said. "My dad taught me." Her biological dad Ivan had to be both dad and mom, she said, he taught her to cook as well, just like all girls in Russia learned, she said.

Zena, now 22, was adopted at 15 years, 10 months of age. "I was lucky. Two more months and I wouldn't be able to come here."

And one of her goals is to take her sewing and drawing skills and turn them into a career as a fashion designer. "And someday own my own business, too," she said. Design school is the next step, she said.

Fashion design, as a separate profession, stretches back about 170 years, but Flint said she gets most of her inspiration around her, from what she sees on the street and even from random conversations.

"When I talk to people I get inspired. When someone says something, that key word, I space out. Until I get that dress out of my head, I don't sleep or eat or anything," she said.

Not everything is a success. "Some of them turn out horrible."

Her notebook is filled with sketches of evening and wedding dresses and bathing suits, her favorite clothes to design. Like all sewing enthusiasts, she has a lot of fabric. "If you were to see my soon-to-be sewing room, you'd probably faint," she said. What she does not have at the moment is a sewing machine. It's in pieces on her living room floor.

Somehow or other it was on the wrong end of a cup of spilled coffee, and while she knew how to take it apart and clean off the rust, she said, the wiring was pretty much ruined. It would cost more than the machine is worth to fix it, she said, "I'd rather save up for the new one," and she's setting aside $50 from each paycheck for it.