FEATURE
FASHION DESIGNER CREDITS MOUNT MARY FOR HER SUCCESS Words Nancy Plascencia | Design Leslie Chavez | Photos provided by Michelle Lopez Many women have walked the halls of Notre Dame, sitting in classrooms, taking notes and making friends. Some start their college experience here, and some transfer in, but Mount Mary can leave an impact on them all. Michelle Lopez, a long-time Milwaukee resident, began classes at Mount Mary in 1999. Since then, she has become a designer and owner of the brands, theMINIclassy and MaskOn.MaskOff. “I’ve literally loved fashion for as long as I can remember and always knew I wanted to be a fashion designer, so after I got married in 1998, I started looking at different schools with fashion programs, and eventually decided on Mount Mary because the program looked amazing, and I wanted to stay close to my family,” Lopez said. Mount Mary University is known for its fashion program and was the first in the nation to start a four-year fashion degree program. Because of her love for fashion, it was no surprise that Lopez majored in apparel product development. Lopez says Mount Mary helped her to grow into a more confident version of herself. “I definitely think Mount Mary helped me to become much more self-confident, independent and taught me a lot about responsibility,” Lopez said. “Growing up, I had (attention deficit disorder), and back then they didn’t know a lot about it, so school was difficult as I had a really hard time focusing, and I eventually kind of gave up on trying because I felt like such a failure.” Although she had trouble focusing at a young age, Lopez found that she was able to set her mind on succeeding at Mount Mary. “I started at Mount Mary when I was 25 years old, and I think that being a bit older I was able to focus better
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and really apply myself,” Lopez said. “I started getting really good grades and being a very competitive person, I just kept trying to outdo myself, so it became like a game to me. I was able to get my GPA up to a 3.8 which was something I had never done before. It gave me something to strive for and is something I’m still super proud of.” Lopez loved the strong community presence and the fact that class sizes were small to create a strong work environment. “I love that some of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned would have to be from my classes at Mount Mary,” Lopez said. “A ton of emphasis was put on paying close attention to detail while focusing on construction and quality – those are still super important to me and I’ve literally applied them to everything I’ve done since. I also absolutely loved the smaller class sizes and the attention we got from the teachers/staff. Sister Aloyse (Hessburg) was my favorite.” The small classes allowed Lopez to gain a sense of responsibility, which inspired her to be her best. “I think, for me, that (small class sizes) really helped me to focus more and it made me feel more responsible for my actions because I felt like I was letting people down if I didn’t do my best,” Lopez said. Along with the small classes, Lopez enjoyed the strong fashion program that Mount Mary was able to provide her with. “A few more things (that I enjoyed) would be the amazing historic costume collection and ties to the fashion world. Being that we’re in Milwaukee, not a very fashionforward city, it was really cool that we had such a highlevel program and that we knew that what we were being taught was right on point,” Lopez said.
