Christian Siriano has been designing clothing since he was a
teenager. He’s 31 now, and for the past decade he and his company have
been making clothing for women of all shapes and sizes.You
could say Siriano is having a moment: Michelle Obama wore one of his
dresses to the Democratic National Convention in July, he featured five
plus-size models at September’s New York Fashion Week and he dressed
nine of the stars on the red carpet for this year’s Emmys. Off the red
carpet, Siriano has a clothing line with Lane Bryant — a national chain
for plus-size women — and he has designed shoes for
Payless.
The designer tells NPR’s Ari Shapiro that, high-end or discount, he
has always been inclusive in his designs, and that inclusiveness goes
back to the women in his family.
“I had my mom, who was super
fashionable, but my mom was a size 16 growing up; and my sister was
really into clothes but a size zero,” he says. “So I had this really
interesting world always around me.”After he launched his
company, Siriano says: “We just had every size customer coming asking
for things. So it just felt very normal from Day 1 in the company.”
