Nicolette Paulsen

After gaining experience in design and garment construction throughout her youth, Nicolette Paulsen started doing custom client work at the early age of fourteen. Some of her earliest designs were sold at Art Fairs. Nicolette began her professional career teaching patternmaking, draping and construction at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. During her fourteen year tenure there, she worked on junior and senior critic projects alongside such designers as Theodora VanRunkle and Bob Mackie, walking her students through every construction challenge imaginable, from couture doll clothing and futuristic wetsuits, to form-molded leather and reinforced motocross armor.

Four consecutive years she was asked by former students for assistance in constructing designs for the Mizuno Sportswear Competition in Japan, each time helping them to bring home a first-place award.

Throughout her tenure at Otis, Nicolette maintained a small roster of industry clients—keeping herself abreast of the latest in fabrications and industry techniques. In 1994, she decided to break from teaching and pursue a career in lingerie design and manufacturing. Although having done contract design work for Frederick’s of Hollywood since 1978, once committed to the effort full time, she produced several best-selling designs - including a gown that has outsold every other design in Frederick’s fifty-six year history.

Her success in the lingerie world, and her wealth of experience from teaching at Otis, have allowed her to pursue a career of specialty costuming for shows and commissioned design - the very same work that brought her into the garment industry in the late sixties.

When designing clothing using sari fabric Nicolette has incorporated a way to use the borders of the fabric with the least waste and most attractive style. All but three of the designs are cut on the bias. All of them use only one or two pattern pieces that lock togther to give the highest yield on the fabric. On the few styles which utilize the old rectangular shape a new twist is added : unusual gussets to give a more modern fit and drape.

In using assorted sari prints each style becomes a unique design appealing to the individualist who does’t want to look like they bought the design “off the rack.”