THREADS Designer Spotlight: Armine Ghalachyan

Armine Ghalachyan is an apparel product development and merchandising technology graduate student.

Designing for the first time at THREADS this year, Ghalachyan’s daughter provided the inspiration for the collection.

“I went the last two years to see the show, last year I took my daughter and I knew that I had to design for this year,” Ghalachyan said. “My daughter wanted to model so badly.”

Ghalachyan’s daughter and two of her daughter’s friends are her models.

Knowing that the collection would be a children’s line, the fabric Ghalachyan stumbled upon was what really started the design process. Designs were then essentially created around the characteristics of her daughter and other young girls such as bubbly, spirited and active.

“I have three looks,” Ghalachyan said. “I used outerwear fabric, full winter suiting fabric and I made the skirt from old jeans.”

The whole skirt consists of trimmings, zipper and detailing. She tried to minimize waste by recycling and using fabric that she already had.

“Red ties everything together,” Ghalachyan said. “It’s a nice warm color.”

Designing required both patterning and draping. Making a children’s collection is a struggle because designs are constricted to a smaller scale.

Ghalachyan faced challenges working to perfect the smaller detailing featured in a jacket for the collection. Additionally learning that even if a design first started as a sketched plan or an idealized concept translating the design from paper to a garment doesn’t always work.

The sketches sometimes show something completely different then what can actually be constructed. Having the collection completed, Ghalachyan still had a lot of nerves about the show such as participating for the first year and not knowing exactly what to expect.

“Little girls are all about fashion, they’re excited for the show,” Ghalachyan said. “You never know, they may get on stage and get stage freight, I think that they will be fine though.”

Ghalachyan said that this has been a good time for her and her daughter and her daughter’s friends too. She said that organizing is hard but it’s all worth it.

Preparing for rehearsals all day, Ghalachyan made sure to be ready for anything. Knowing that she had to keep her little models occupied, she packed lots of snacks and toys

The girls were doing a good job keeping themselves entertained by practicing their walks for the runway. They are very excited for the show, and are all having fun with THREADS.