Monique Lhuillier is one of the reasons why I have a passion for designing. Since young, I’ve been designing gowns as much as I paint or draw. Randy Ortiz and Rajo Laurel are just few of the country’s fashion jewels that I’ve been dreaming to be, and not to forget Vera Wang in my list.
Lhuillier plays an important role in my life as a designer. Not that I'm copying her technique because I want to create my own image as a designer, but she's one of the few Filipinos that are now soaring tremendously in the limelight of global fashion designing.
Diane Monique Llamas Lhuillier was born in 1971 in Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines. She is a Filipina fashion designer based in the United States. She is of mixed French and Spanish-Cebuano descent.
Monique Lhuillier is one of the reasons why I have a passion for designing.
She's the daughter of Michel Lhuiller, a successful businessman of mixed French Filipino descent, and Amparito Llamas, a society figure & former model of Spanish-Cebuano Filipino descent. Lhuillier's family is prominent in Philippine society. She was born to Michel J. Lhuillier, a successful Filipino businessman of Mixed french descent and Amparito Llamas Lhuillier, a Filipina society figure and former model of Spanish-Cebuana descent. They own a chain of pawnshops currently operating in more than a hundred cities in the nation.
Lhuillier demonstrated good taste and great imagination at an early age. At 15, she was an outstanding student in Lausanne, Switzerland and hoped to become successful in the fashion industry. Her parents sent her to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM), where she met the man she married, Tom Bugbee.
Lhuillier and Bugbee, a young, dynamic husband and wife team, founded their company in 1996 and launched their first bridal collection. The line was extremely well-received by fashion-savvy brides, editors, and celebrities.
ML's Humble Achievements:
- Received the 2001 Glamorous Bridal Designer Award
- A receiver of the 2002 Avant Garde Bridal Designer Award
- 2003 Designer of the Year Award from Wedding Dresses Magazine and the bridal industry members
- In 2003, she was also inducted as a new member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)
The breakthrough came after Monique designed the gowns for her wedding entourage. These captured the fancy of couture circles. Having had a difficult time finding her own gown, Lhuillier, a 23-year-old newlywed at the time, decided to begin sketching her own line of dresses. Her husband figured this was little more than a hobby, one that she would tire of soon enough. "He thought I had the wedding blues and eventually I'd get over it," she told USA WEEKEND Magazine.
She made the news with two high-profile celebrity weddings in a row. She designed Christine Baumgartner's wedding dress for her Fall, 2004 wedding to Kevin Costner shortly after designing both of Britney Spears's dresses for her wedding to Kevin Federline. She's also designed the wedding gown of US former Vice President and former Second Lady Al and Tipper Gore's youngest daughter, Sarah G. Lee, for her marriage to Bill Lee, Giuliana DePandi's wedding gown to The Apprentice winner Bill Rancic, and Allison Munn's wedding gown to actor Scott Holroyd, and also Heidi Montag's wedding dress to Spencer Pratt. Also, one of her gowns is used by Hilary Duff when she plays Sam in A Cinderella Story.
Subsequently Lhuillier added evening wear to her line, and several of her efforts showed up on red carpets before awards shows. For the Fall, 2007 season she branched off into more typical runway collections.
Monique Lhuillier has been passionate of what she's doing. She may never have expected that her time in fashion designing will come, but look at her now...A REAL GEM IN FASHION DESIGNING.
References:
http://www.wikipedia.com
famousfilipinos.jacobfuentes.com
Posts
