Interview with Melanie Maggio-Footwear News Shoe Star Winner

Style Stories recently spent some time with Melanie Maggio, this year's winner of the annual Footwear News Shoe Star Competition to hear how her life has been changed by the win. Seven graduating FIT Accessories Design BFA students started out in the Shoe Star competition and participated in a demanding series of shoe design elimination challenges that were judged by Michael Atmore, editorial director of FN; Fred Allard, creative director of Nine West; and Ellen Goldstein, professor and chair of the accessories design department at FIT; along with guest judges, including Giuseppe Zanotti, Stuart Weitzman, Mark Badgley and James Mischka; Patricia Field, and Clinton Kelly.
Here is Melanie's story...


Do you prefer flats or pumps?
Defiantly pumps! I am a heels girl.

How would you describe your personal style?
I don’t have a specific image. It is usually trend forward and I just like to go with things I feel fashionable in and kind of powerful in. Whatever fits the moment. I tend towards a more structured look than girly. I am a little on the edgy side and I wear a lot of black but I wear a lot of unique things.

What was your biggest fashion faux pas?
Probably my worst look would be in elementary school we wore the turtle necks under the sweaters and the high top boots with the socks showing.

What is your favorite piece in your closet?
I have this Club Monaco shift dress that is sequined all over. Right now that is my favorite.

Do you have a favorite charity or community organization?
Baby Buggy is one of my favorites because we get a group of FIT students together and patch up clothes that were donated from sample rooms like Osh Kosh. After we fix them they get donated to needy families. Baby clothes are so disposable or short lived and a lot of families don’t have the money to pay those prices.

Do you have a favorite quote, proverb or verse?
The successes I had didn't surprise me because I'd already experienced them in my mind.
-Michael Jordon

When did you know you wanted to design shoes? Did you enter FIT with shoe design in mind?
I knew that I wanted to design shoes in my second year there but it wasn’t until my last year that I realized I wanted in a career in foot wear. I’ve always been into fashion I’ve been designing since I was 12. I started drawing everything from gowns to sportswear. When I was 15 I got into handbags and that’s when I really started taking the accessories path. When I went to FIT I got my Associates degree in Fashion Design but I really wanted to pursue accessories so I went on to get by Bachelors degree in the Accessories program but my main forte was handbags. It was there I started to do the footwear classes and discovered all the creativity and opportunity there. It has been really fun and I am glad that I ventured out to another design element.

You participated (and won) the Footwear News Shoe Star design challenge-what was that experience like?
That experience was very exciting for my senior semester at FIT. We were mainly working on our senior thesis and I was having a lot of fun challenging myself with the creativity of that and developing my senior portfolio. But when I heard about the Shoe Star competition I decided it was an opportunity to REALLY push my creativity. It was an environment where each challenge could be your last shot. You had to give it your all every time because if you didn’t you could be out. There was a lot of pressure trying to get through every round. It pushed my creativity to a level I don’t think my senior semester alone would have pushed me to. It was so great to get all the press and be such a young designer!
The challenge started with 7 designers, all of them came from FIT and were accessories majors. The footwear competition consisted of also making the shoes, not just designing them and FIT is the only school that has the equipment to make shoes.

As winner of the competition you earned an internship at Nine West Shoes-what has that been like and what did you encounter there that you didn’t expect?
They threw me right into the design process for the Spring 2009 collection. It was very rewarding to know they trusted my design skills enough to have me design shoes that are going to be on the shelves. I love going to work every day. Everyone there is so great to work with they are all great, gifted designers and they all want me to learn. I love knowing that I am sitting there drawing something that could possibly be a top selling shoe. And that’s why when I go in I take it very seriously and have to be in the mindset of the customer and what we want to give her.

How has the experience impacted your ideas for the future? What is next for Melanie?
I really want to learn as much as I can in the footwear industry. I am absolutely loving it right now and I know there is so much more for me to learn. I haven’t been to China yet. I want to go there and see the whole manufacturing process. I really want to go as far as I can go with this but I still also have a love for handbags so later down the road I may want to go that route. I know that I definitely want to stick with accessory design and I am starting off in a great place. I know that I am very, very privileged to have been given such a great opportunity.

What do you like best about yourself?
The fact that I am an artist. I think I am very privileged to be able to see things in my mind. That I am creative enough to put colors and fabrications and designs and lines, materials, anything together. To be able to see that makes life rewarding in so many ways.