Expert knitter and weaver, Maria’s technical knowledge and experience was cultivated in Europe during her early studies at Polimoda and Politecnico di Milano, Italy (through the Fashion Institute of Technology based in NYC, USA). While in Italy, she obtained her BFA in Fashion Design and concentrated in Knitwear Design. Learning hands on from some of the Italy’s finest luxury knitwear designers and manufacturers. It was in these institutions of design where she learned technical and figure drawing, how to program and operate Shima Seiki, Stoll, and Brother knitting machines, among other machinery, to produce cut and sew and fully fashioned knitwear apparel, footwear and accessories.

Her senior thesis was well received in the press and was featured as an up and coming knitwear designer at Pitti Filati in Firenze, Italy (Summer of 2015).

In her earlier professional experiences, Maria was a textile designer and weaver at Malhia Kent, in Paris, France. One of Paris’s most coveted textile ateliers, whose original founder was the first textile designer of Coco Chanel, who created the infamous Chanel tweed. Today the Maison creates materials for many luxury brands including Chanel, Fendi, Givenchy, Chloe and many more…

It was here where Maria’s love of knitwear expanded into woven textiles, and she learned to weave on the hand loom and create technical sheets for manufacturing partners. Creating complex woven structures, focusing on fiber and yarn development, expanding upon color theory to create unique materials that would flow onto luxury runways…(ex. right photo).

From knitwear to textile design, Maria’s next steps went in the direction of Product Development at the legendary Maison, Givenchy, in Paris, France.

While at Givenchy, Maria focused on Ready-to-wear for women, focusing on fur, leather, and jersey cut and sew garments - and assisting where needed for Ready-to-wear Tailored Garments & Couture.

Here Maria learned how a brand of this caliber runs on a day to day basis. From the collaboration between design, development, marketing, and business teams, to consulting and developing finished samples with manufacturing partners in France, Italy, and Portugal, model fittings for shows and mass production, how to produce a runway show, buyer meetings - and everything in between.

Maria was at Givenchy for the last collections of Riccardo Tisci and for the tribute collection to Riccardo Tisci known as the All-Red Collection.

From 2017 to present day, Maria has been in the material design space, this time for footwear at Nike Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. Maria has worked on almost every sector of Nike’s footwear product range within the last few years - from running, training, basketball, lifestyle, weather proof, FlyEase, Olympics, Doernbecher, Jordan - men’s, women’s, unisex, and kids…You name it, she has probably worked on it.

Maria is the current Senior Manager for Sport Footwear at Air Jordan at Nike WHQ.

Please visit here to check out just a few of the designs that have gone into the global marketplace.