Tanya Taylor: Threading the Needle to Fashion Success

Fashion Design (AAS)

Standing among Madison Avenue’s old-guard fashion houses and iconic galleries and near The Carlyle hotel is a new boutique named for designer Tanya Taylor. Elegant, modern, and inviting, Taylor’s store is the brainchild of a unique womenswear designer and business visionary. With her team of 45, Taylor, AAS Fashion Design ’09, built a beloved line of women’s clothing sold in stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks. In 2023, after building her brand for ten years, Taylor felt that it was time to invite in new audiences with a brick-and-mortar store. 

She created a space that reflects the feminine, assertive design sensibility and embrace of lush color for which her brand is known. On entering, visitors encounter a generous collection of other creators’ work—jewelry and housewares—extending the TT world of warmth, style, and grace beyond apparel. Several evenings a month, Taylor hosts events that serve as labs enabling  Taylor and her team to discover exactly what women need today.

Taylor is often found in her store, engaging directly with customers and helping them style looks and discover new favorites. She extends her conversation with consumers and learns about women’s preferences through an active social media presence. “We bring them along in the creative process, asking for their thoughts on patterns and colors, so I’m not making choices in a vacuum.”

A New Yorker at heart but Canadian by birth, Taylor graduated from McGill with a degree in finance. During her four years studying the field, Taylor was drawn to a more creative path, connected to her lifelong love of art. She decided on New York as the place and Parsons as the school to pursue that journey.

“From the very first day, Parsons underscored the importance of curiosity. Teachers push you to explore your ideas further, to fall in love with the city and see it as a playground for creativity.”

In addition to nudging students out of their comfort zones and classrooms, “the faculty were amazing at bringing industry people directly into our world. I remember Kate and Andy Spade coming in one week; the next week, in walked Fern Mallis. We met with marketing executives, designers, and fabricators, and I came to see all the roles you can play in this industry.” Ten years later, Taylor is both CEO and creative director of her company. The combination of creative vision and knowledge of the economics of the industry, an uncommon paciring in fashion, helps explain her meteoric rise.

In addition to developing students’ mastery of craft and creative process, Parsons strives to instill fearlessness and an innovative spirit. “A celebrated sense of individuality was a thread connecting all my classes at Parsons. I was never made to feel I was doing something right or wrong as long as I could clearly explain my creative concepts. To this day, that was great training. Because when you start a brand, everyone must understand where you’re coming from and your design philosophy; you have to bring people into the story,” Taylor says.

The school's focus on empathetic design helped Taylor achieve what many fashion designers fail to do: to make size inclusivity a pillar of her business. And as with everything she does, Taylor goes all in, working with both a size 18 fit model and a traditional size 4. She embraces bodies of all kinds, creating clothes that make women of all sizes feel beautiful. She has also developed a unique core collection of elevated essentials that allows women to build a sustainable wardrobe. This group of consistent sellers has enabled Taylor to create a solid foundation for her business and to protect her loyal team from the seasonal vagaries of fashion.

Taylor interned with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen while at Parsons and went on to work there for several years after graduation. She came to believe that there was a place in the market for a “feminine voice and an authentic new point of view on prints and color.” She quit on a Friday afternoon and on the following Monday morning, accompanied by a single employee–someone who knew his way around the Garment District–she set out on her own.

In launching her brand, Taylor knew that she needed to do something bold to win the attention of the fashion media. She decided on the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), her favorite place in the city, as the venue. Lacking both access and money, she learned that corporate sponsors often give up their spots at events they host. “J.P. Morgan wasn’t using theirs and let me have it because I just called them incessantly. And for the tiniest fee that has ever existed for a fashion show, we pulled off our launch.”

A few key journalists and platforms picked it up. “It’s how Michelle Obama saw the collection, it’s how retailers discovered it, and because we were at MoMA, we were able to get the attention we needed.” Taylor still keeps Obama’s dress form in the studio, “so we can react quickly and create what she wants,  which is amazing, since she is up for trying color and texture.”

Along with Parsons alums Tracey Reese, Jason Wu, and Marc Jacobs, Taylor became one of Obama’s go-to brands overnight. Today she dresses the First Lady, Jill Biden, with the attention to fit and color that has become her signature. 

Still close to her professors at Parsons and surrounded by the network she began building in her first year, Taylor leaps into new territory each season. A partnership with the baby clothing line Maisonette is currently underway. An evening line that shows “there’s something between super-sweet and hyper-sexy” is (thankfully) on the horizon. If anyone can thread that needle, it’s Tanya Taylor.