Following in her father’s footsteps to pursue fashion, Diamond Bar High School senior Daisy Lu has committed to Parsons School of Design in the hopes of starting her own clothing business in the future. 

Parson’s is a four-year private school and was the only art school Lu applied to. She was first made aware of Parsons when her art teachers and classmates encouraged her to look into the school’s fashion programs. The school is ranked No. 1 in the nation as an art and design school, which made it an even more appealing choice for Lu. 

“Parsons School of Design is my dream school; it’s located at the center of my favorite city, New York, which is also the ultimate city of fashion in the United States,” Lu said via Instagram. “Parsons is able to give me all kinds of fashion industry-related resources not just in class but outside of school so that I can succeed in the future.”

As for her major, Lu is looking to study Strategic Design and Management due to its combination of fashion and business. She plans on taking the classes Design Innovation and Leadership as well as New Design Firms in order to foster her leadership and critical thinking skills.

 Her interest in fashion stems from her father, who owns a fabric and textile company. She said being surrounded by the different colors and patterns of clothing pieces from such a young age has helped her establish a high standard when putting together and designing outfits. 

“I do remember one day in autumn, my dad forced me to wear a pair of sandals instead of warm shoes, only to match my outfit for the day… this made me have very high requirements for my fashion styling later on,” Lu said. “If the clothing I’m wearing isn’t a good match, I will be in a bad mood for the whole day.”

Since she was interested in both fashion and leadership, Lu founded the DBHS Fashion Club, which allowed her to express both interests simultaneously. While Lu has never made clothing before, she said that  she constantly sketches out designs as a hobby. She said she gets inspiration for her sketches from aspects of traditional Chinese clothing, which she always tries to incorporate into her designs. Other ways she gets ideas for sketches is a process called draping, in which a designer manipulates fabric on a mannequin in order to visualize the different ways they can create shapes and patterns.

“There’s no other particular way of getting ideas, basically just watch a bunch of documentaries or listen to the music about the topic/culture you’re interested in designing for, and just let the ideas flow,” Lu said. 

 Lu said she doesn’t have any intention of bringing her designs to life in the near future since she wants to gain more professional skills in fashion design. However, she does want to collaborate with a professional sewer sometime in the future in order for her designs to look as best as they possibly can. In addition, she doesn’t plan on working as a full-time designer, but rather hopes to create her own fashion brand that sells clothing pieces based on elements of traditional Chinese fashion.

“I hope to use my power to promote Chinese traditional cultural heritage,” Lu said. “My goal is to establish a fashion brand that promotes Chinese cultural heritage, ideally [to stop] them from dying away.”