Clothing Designer’s Line Aims To Empower Women
Anthony Mark Hankins is an interesting young fashion designer.
He doesn’t live in an isolated Italian villa. He doesn’t design high fashion apparel exclusively for the rich and famous. He’s a hard-working man in Texas who understands his customers are more likely to shop at Sears than at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Born in Elizabeth, N.J., in 1969, Hankins started designing dresses for his mother at the tender age of 7. Although being creative wasn’t always looked upon with favor among many of the blue-collar residents of that working-class town, Hankins knew from an early age he wanted to be a fashion designer and concentrated all his energy into achieving that goal.
After graduating from high school he attended the Pratt Institute’s School of Design before heading off to Paris to the prestigious E’cole Design School. The journey from Elizabeth High School to the House of Yves St. Laurent was not an easy one, but Hankins found that through determination and the help of his friends, he could accomplish almost anything.
He loved his time in Paris, but designing $20,000 one-of-a-kind gowns wasn’t what Hankins had in mind for a career. He wanted to make clothes women like his mother could wear.
“I’ve always wanted to design clothes that appealed to every woman,” says Hankins. “whether she was full-size, petite, white, black, yellow or green. My clothes have always been designed for real women with real lives.”
With that in mind he headed back to the United States and into a job at J.C. Penney that would eventually lead to his being named the first in-house designer for that retailer.
Executives at J.C. Penney, a company long known for its conservative, middle-of-the-road apparel, thought they wanted to bring a more ethnic flair into their fashion offerings. Hankins was the young man they hired in 1992 to develop that ethnic mix.
The fit at J.C. Penney was a bad one, though, and Hankins left in 1994 to start his own company, Anthony Mark Hankins Inc. He hasn’t looked back since. Today he is the 28-year-old head of a $40-million company. His designs can be found at Sears, Target, Nordstrom and on the Home Shopping Network.
In addition to his design career, Hankins has never forgotten all the people who were there for him along the way. As a result, he spends as much time as possible helping other young people as they begin their journey through life. He speaks to students around the world offering praise and inspiration, challenging them to following their dreams.
Next month his first book, “Fabric of Dreams - Designing My Own Success” will hit the stores.
This is definitely a young man to keep an eye on. He is designing affordable clothes that make women feel good about themselves.
“Clothes,” says Hankins, “are a woman’s spiritual armor. They should give her strength and power.”
MEMO: Shanna Southern Peterson is a Spokane writer and home economist. The Clothesline appears weekly. Ideas for the column may be sent to her c/o The Spokesman-Review Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210, or e-mail shanptr@aol.com.