Design has always been at the heart of who I am. I’ve explored many creative paths and found love through photography, styling, building websites, and directing visuals, but designing is the place I always return to. It’s where my ideas find form, where fabric becomes story, and where I feel most at home.
No matter how far my creativity stretches, design is the thread that runs through it all. It is my foundation, my anchor, and my greatest joy.
nicole bell
Graduate fashion show
It began in childhood, when I drew fashion illustrations and bound them into little books—my first catalogs. Soon I was styling my friends, photographing them, and turning our afternoons into makeshift editorials. That love carried me to design school, where I showed my first collection in collaboration with a textile student who hand-printed her artwork onto my fabrics and stitched my sketches into life. Fashion was never just fabric to me, it was storytelling, a way to preserve memory. Those early chapters became the foundation for everything that followed.
nyfw fw15
After graduation, I returned home to Houston and built the collection I had always dreamed of “Yosemitycycle”, photographs I had taken transformed into prints on silk, organza, and neoprene. The work was sharper, bolder, more me. That collection opened doors, carrying me all the way to New York Fashion Week. It was a dream come alive, the energy, the lights, the designs I created moving down the runway. A reminder that when vision meets persistence, dreams don’t just stay imagined, they take flight.
campaign 2016
After my first NYFW show, I wanted to keep creating and push my vision further. I collaborated with producer Jaime Morones, editor Clarissa Marquez, videographer Andrew Kendall, and my model and muse Nicole Blackburn to create my first designer promo video. I styled, designed, and brought the concept to life while they each added their own artistry. We filmed in San Francisco, and it was one of the most joyful experiences; proof of how powerful collaboration can be when creative worlds collide.
magazine feature 2016
n 2016, I styled, designed, and sewn by hand—every detail shaped by my own vision and craft. That work went on to be featured in an independent magazines, marking it the 6th feature and another moment where my dedication and love for design carried me forward.
NYFW ss17
My second collection was born from one of the most memorable journeys of my life, a trip to Japan. It was uncharted territory, a chance to step outside who I had been and lean into who I was becoming. From the playful streets of Harajuku to the quiet awe of Mount Fuji, from the pride woven into Japanese fashion to the avant-garde brilliance of Yayoi Kusama, I was immersed in a culture that celebrated both joy and daring. I carried that inspiration home with me in a bolt of polka-dot silk crepe and photographs I took along the way, which I transformed into prints. With my own hands, I sewed the entire collection; each piece a love letter to Japan, to my craft, and to the power of stepping into the unknown.
