Santa Fe, NM

Hester Sunshine finds inspiration as a designer in everything around her. Hester has been designing her whole life and calls New York City home, after a few stints in Santa Fe, New Mexico during her adolescence and to help take care of her parents who still currently live there. Since she could speak — and demand that her parents dress her in fashionable clothing — Hester began to dress herself and sew with a children’s safety needle to create designs for her dolls. She sold her doll designs to classmates, and by sixth grade, she had graduated to selling her own children’s clothing to friends after trading her safety needle for a real sewing machine. Hester attended Parsons School of Design with a double major through Eugene Lang College. Unfortunately, she was kicked out of Parsons during her junior year and finished her degree abroad at Central Saint Martins in London before returning to complete her major at Eugene Lang. She proudly holds degrees in fashion design, history, and theory. Hester describes her fashions as colorful clown couture with a vintage punk rock edge, and she is influenced by current and past trends as well as art history. While she has been a fashion outsider most of her career, after being kicked out of Parsons and struggling with industry acceptance, Hester is now on the path to finding her place in the fashion world.