Meet the Designer

Mileena was born in Port –Au- Prince, Haiti and came to America at the age of three
years old with her dad, leaving behind her mom to seek better opportunity in
the states. It was when she got to the fifth grade that she noticed her
interest in fashion. She started off asking her father, a leather craftsman and
artist to teach her how to sew. It was then he gave her first sewing lesson;
sewing the straight lines of loose leaf paper. After learning to sew, Mileena
spent a lot of time reconstructing her clothing. Whether it be ripping a pair
of jeans or cutting out the sleeve of a shirt she began taking her style into
her own hands. Although her father hated her new style because of his tradition
ways, she knew that Fashion is what she would enjoy doing as a career and with
the push, and encouragement from her mother she knew she had to pursue her
dreams and make her mother proud.

After graduating high school and looking into colleges, Mileena took to all the fashion
schools in search of information and applied. She was accepted to The Art
Institute of NYC for Fashion Design. It was then that the idea of Mileena began
to come to life. After designing garments simply for the purpose of learning,
Mileena started to notice there was a pattern in her inspirations and the type
of garments she liked to create. There she realized Street wear was her
category because it represented her girly tomboy aesthetic that she began
developing and incorporating into her own style.