From New York to Paris, Lexi Scherzinger makes her mark on the fashion world

Senior Lexi Scherzinger’s interest in fashion has literally taken her around the world.

In the summer of 2018, she lived in New York City and interned for world-renowned fashion designer Christian Siriano.

“It was exactly like ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’” she said, referencing the competitive and sometimes hostile work environment.

Lexi delivered papers to Siriano’s house all the time throughout the summer, and though there were only three interns, he never learned her name.

Even though she didn’t like the environment, Lexi still views the summer as a great learning experience.

Working directly with Siriano and other major players in his company, she was able to gain invaluable experience about technical design.

She then studied in Paris during the fall of 2018, right after she decided to switch majors. Originally a strategic communication major, she decided to change to journalism. She’s known that she wanted to study fashion since her second semester freshman year.

Lexi is double majoring in fashion design and journalism with a minor in French. The French minor came in handy in Paris, where most shopkeepers couldn’t even tell that she was American.

During Lexi’s time in France, her professor took her class on a trip to the Champagne region of France to do a champagne tasting.

He joked that it was a requirement to get drunk or he wouldn’t let them on the bus back home.

The professor, a 5-foot-2-inch British man in his 70s who still dresses like it’s the 1980s, taught a class about luxury brand management. The class was Lexi’s favorite of the whole trip and she added it to her fashion resume.

Through her various internship and travel experiences, Lexi learned that she values a good work environment, which she found during a summer 2019 media relations internship at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.

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Just a mile and a half from her family home in Chicago, she was able to combine her journalism and fashion skills into an art-based public relations job.

Lexi worked closely with the exhibit featuring the work of Virgil Abloh, who is currently the Men’s artistic director for Louis Vuitton and the former creative director for Kanye West.

“I absolutely loved it,” Lexi said. “That was the most friendly, welcoming, supportive work environment. I learned so much.”

She isn’t sure what she wants to do after graduation, but Lexi would consider returning to the museum. She’s also considering pursuing another route that would focus more on her journalism skills.

While attending the NYC Media trip this past J-Term, she fell in love with The Marshall Project. Run by a former New York Times reporter, the project focuses on long form investigative reports on the criminal justice system.

“There is this investigation of individual people’s lives who have been touched by the criminal justice system,” she said. “That sounds like an absolute dream for me.”

Back in Oxford, working as the design co-director for Miami University Fashion & Design (MUF&D), Lexi is preparing to present her final collection during the organization’s annual fashion show, held this year on April 25 in Millett Hall.

Lexi has shown a collection annually since her freshman year, where she showed five pieces (which she says was too many, but she finished it anyway). This year, she plans to show six pieces, five of which were created during her senior studio, and the last of which was created on the side during her spare time. She spends about 2o hours a week “breaking [her] neck in front of the sewing machine,” but she loves it all the same.

Lexi is the only senior designer who has shown a collection all four years.

“It’ll be super, super fun to finish off exactly where I started,” she said.

And though Lexi doesn’t know where she’ll be living and working a year from now, she knows that one day, she’ll return to the city that she fell in love with during a college study-abroad experience:

Paris.

@h_horsington12

horsinhp@miamioh.edu