Arias���s love of fine art and design continued as she
attended Miami���s famed New World School of the Arts.
She then left the sun and color of Miami to enroll in New
York���s Parsons The New School. When she was in her
last year at Parsons, one of her professors suggested she
apply for the Shinmai Creator���s Project, the four winners
of which would show at Japan Fashion Week. She did,
she won and she ignited her fire.
Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum at the Fashion
Institute of Technology, saw Arias���s work in Tokyo and says
that she ���remembered telling Japanese TV that I thought
she [Arias ] had ���the courage of her girly convictions��� ���
also a beautiful sense of color.���
HYLAND
