From LHS to NYC boutiques

LINCOLN - It was a good year to be Nicole Romano.

In the last 12 months, Lincoln's ingénue designer continued her ascent in New York's fashion scene, culminating with the debut of 26-year-old Romano's fall collection at a standing-room-only runway show at a New York restaurant.

More than 500 people attended the Feb. 4 show, including buyers from Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue. "I heard people were on their tiptoes or standing on the banquet tables trying to get a peep of the runway," Romano, who was backstage prepping her models for most of the show, says.

It's too soon to know if the buyers will place orders yet, but with names like that in the audience, Romano, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate, has high hopes that her clothing and accessories will be available in a major department store before long.

Romano's designs also went on display at a showroom in New York, another major milestone. Since September, buyers have been able to examine Romano's line at Scatola Sartoriale, a showroom on Little West 12th Street in Manhattan's meatpacking district. This means buyers can visit and check out the line on their own, without making an appointment with Romano or one of her representatives.

Buyers from more than 50 stores viewed Romano's line last month. Even if the orders don't come right away, she says, the exposure helps.

"I know as soon as my product is in front of the right people, they're going to love it," Romano says. "They're going to want it in their store."

Romano's is the only American-designed line on display at Scatola. Its companions include Vivienne Westwood, Byblos Blu, leFull and Toy G.

But Romano strives to incorporate a European flavor into her work. A Paris fabric show last spring and a trip to Italy last May and June inspired her spring 2005 collection, whose garments and accessories incorporate the blues of the sea, yellows of lemon trees, and the shapes of fisherman's nets, mermaids' hair and rock formations.

Scatola co-owner Valentino Vettori calls Romano's pieces "almost one of a kind."

"She definitely doesn't do anything that looks mass-produced," he says.

Romano named her fall 2005 line the Ticonderoga collection, after "the iconic Dixon Ticonderoga pencil found in American classrooms," her Web site explains.

Romano attended the Wheeler School, a private independent school in Providence, until eighth grade, then transferred to Lincoln High School. In the fall collection, Romano aimed to revisit her experience of that transition by contrasting the propriety of private school uniforms with the freedom of self-expression she found in public school, she says.

The garments are almost exclusively yellow, red and black -- pencil colors, naturally -- and the shapes are meant to invoke "echoes of prim and elegant teachers, quietly smoldering librarians and the energy of contrasting two different worlds," the Web site says.

Romano shows her wares not in a tent at Bryant Park, but at Capitale, a Manhattan restaurant for whose waitstaff Romano designed uniforms.

She shows there because it's less expensive, but also because it's a fitting venue, she says: "I truly love to show in Capitale," an old bank building with a mosaic floor and gold leaf walls and ceilings.

The last two shows were sponsored by Sofia Mini, the sparkling wine made by Francis Ford Coppola, named for his daughter and sold in a diminutive pink can -- "a very trendy, fun sort of cocktail," and thus a good match for Romano's collections.

Time Out New York, the magazine New Yorkers read for advice on how to spend their precious leisure time, named Romano a designer to watch for 2004. After that, Romano's press coverage only increased. Articles appeared in Fashion Wire Daily and Women's Wear Daily. The October issue of Harper's Bazaar used Nicole Romano accessories in a fashion spread. Her designs have appeared in Lucky, Elle, Elle Girl, Teen Vogue, and Cosmopolitan, among others.

Romano designed the restaurant uniforms for Moda restaurant, which opened on South Water Street in Providence last year. The uniforms -- tailored white shirts, slit low in front for the women -- are more flattering than most uniforms, and slightly sexier, but still practical for bending over and climbing stairs, made of durable fabrics that will withstand washing once or twice a week.

Romano also designed the distinctive uniform worn by waitresses at Kartabar on Thayer Street -- a black tank top with multiple orange and red straps forming a halter neck and trailing loose in back -- and at three more restaurants in New York and two in Boston.

She got into the restaurant-uniform market with Capitale, the New York eatery where she holds her shows. Capitale's building used to be a bank, so Romano gave the uniforms' white shirts armbands that resemble an old-fashioned bank teller's uniform.

The restaurants that request her services tend to be places that "invest a lot in decor" and want uniforms to match, Romano says. So in designing a uniform, Romano starts by studying the decor and the history of the restaurant's location.

Romano also serves as a design consultant for the private label sold at Jasmine Sola boutiques.

"Nicole is a very talented designer," says Luciano Manganella, Jasmine Sola's owner. "She's a very smart person, and she will go a long way."

Manganella describes Romano's creations as "sexy, original, forward -- things you definitely don't find at The Limited."

It's not just in the U.S. that Romano's name is gaining fame. Her Web site features a dozen Japanese press clips: "I don't even know what they say," she laughs. She's now available in Europe, too: a London jewelry store owner learned of Romano's accessories by reading dailycandy.com, a Web site that seeks out trendy new products for youthful consumers and sends a free daily e-mail newsletter that featured Nicole Romano earrings in April.

Though her business is growing, Romano still does all the design work, chooses fabric, initiates production jobs, and negotiates prices with contractors. She has an assistant in New York who works with factories during production, manages showroom relations, and handles requests from magazines to borrow samples for photo shoots.

She hopes, eventually, to delegate all production responsibilities, but she'll always keep the creative process for herself. "That's mine," she says, with a defensiveness not entirely in jest.

It's also the part that comes naturally to her, and she does it constantly, she confides: "If I look at that telephone pole -- why do I like that knot that's in the wire?"

Romano's next goal is to be available in every major city in the United States.

Rhode Island will be watching.