"Most designers started really young by reading all the ‘in’ magazines like Vogue and Elle, or deconstructing old clothes to see how they are made. I think I was about 15 when I decided that I wanted to take up fashion designing in college," shares Solenn. "I have always been into arts. My parents made me take drawing and painting lessons since the age of three till I was 17 so that’s how I developed the passion of drawing and furthermore, drawing clothes. This also may be a family thing since my grandmother was a great wedding gown maker and pattern maker here in the Philippines and my French grandma used to knit clothes for her nine children."
"I enrolled in the Studio Bercot in Paris for three years to take up fashion. We had a wide variety of classes – sewing, patternmaking, draping, knitting, drawing, history of the art, computer, textile and many more. I really enjoyed it there and worked hard to get noticed by our teachers, who would help even more if they saw that you were really there to learn and not play around. I also worked back stage during fashion week with Vivienne Westwood, Issey Miyake by Naoki Takizaoa, Martine Sitbon, Bernhard Whillem, and interned for two weeks for the show room of Dior. When school ended, I got a three-month internship with Fanny Liautard, an haute couture wedding gown designer near Place de la Concorde. I learned a lot of secret techniques there and got to feel a lot of fabulous materials. Then I decided to come back to the Philippines to try and start something here. My choice of coming back was very hard for me since I have fallen in love with the Parisian life. But I had my own reasons, and good ones. So now I’m back, and want to show people what I can do. I am only 20, so I have time to work on it little by little. I work with Lulu Tan Gan at the moment and go to school in F.I.P as well. In my free time, I take Tagalog lessons and work on little projects of my own like a small shoe line. I want to get into ready-to-wear and trust to someday own my own shop which will hopefully expand elsewhere."
Uptown/Downtown gave Solenn a few weeks to come up with a five-set collection. The result was a visual display of youthful exuberance and careful craftsmanship that will certainly make Heussaff a name to reckon with someday!