Designer: Ericka Angiuli
Title: Pure Imagination – Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Ericka Angiuli is from Anaheim, California and comes from a very large and “very loud Italian family…yet I’m extremely shy and fairly quiet!” She loves pizza, animals, tea, and all things nerdy. The majority of her past work is in ready-to-wear fashion. She says that as much as she loves making one-of-a-kind pieces, she really enjoys making clothing that everyone can wear. She has competed in the past two Her Universe Fashion Shows.
“I was a strange child and would only wear purple clothes, “she recalls. “It was my favorite color and I refused to wear anything that didn’t have purple on it. I also loved to mix prints. Kids R Us was my personal paradise with their bike shorts and oversized 90’s t-shirts. My grandma always thought I was crazy, but let me wear what I wanted to.” Growing up, her Grandmother was interested in the arts and took Ericka to the theatre. She was enamored by it, and hoped to be an actor someday. In Junior High school, she auditioned to be in drama and didn’t get in. Her alternative? Ericka’s high school offered Fashion Design, so she took it with the hope of making costumes for the theatre department. During the same time, she began doing extra work for film and television. Her first day on set she fell in love with the wardrobe department, and knew from that day forward, her future would involve fashion. “Geek couture has grown so much since the first Her Universe Fashion Show,” she says. “To me, it’s taking on a completely different name. It’s now more than having a comic based tee shirt made for girls; it’s providing girls/women with an opportunity to showcase a new kind of fashion. Geek couture is shedding a light on this by giving a platform to show young girls that you can be a scientist and a fashion designer at the same time.”
Photo: Mark Edwards