Designer: Cynthia Rowley
by Bart Boehlert (Page 3)
by Bart Boehlert
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Soon after, Rowley packed a rented truck with her sewing machines and fabric and moved to New York City. "I didn't know one single person," she says, "and I did everything myself." She made patterns on newspapers to save money and cut fabric with a glove on because her hands were so blistered. At an early show for a collection based on a 50s theme, she served 200 White Castle hamburgers and onion rings. She called the stores herself. "I'm pathologically optimistic," she says.
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Slowly, Cynthia Rowley's enterprise grew and she learned the ropes. "I like business a lot," Rowley reports. "It can be as creative as design. I apply the same principles to business that I do to design, I turn things around and twist them slightly. For me, to see my quarterly statement is as satisfying as seeing a beautifully constructed garment." Today, Rowley designs dresses priced at around a reasonable $200. There are slip dresses, sleeveless shift dresses with matching jackets, and belted shirt dresses in lovely pastel colors, gingham, linens, and fun prints of cherries, roses, and the birds and the bees. "I'm a girlie girl and I like timeless, feminine clothes," says Rowley. One pretty dress, inspired by the memory of preserving autumn leaves between sheets of wax paper, has pale fabric flowers pressed in layers of translucent white cotton organdy.
