Fashion meant self-expression for New Yorker Alison Loehnis growing up. It became her career when she moved to London, to LVMH, then Yoox Net-a-Porter
- Alison Loehnis was always styling her school uniform, but she didn’t expect fashion to become her career after starting out in advertising. Then came London
I was born in New York and grew up in a close-knit family in Manhattan. We have a house on Long Island, which is where my parents, younger sister and I spent weekends and summers.
My mom was a role model in terms of being able to have a career and a family. She had great style and as a kid I was taken around various stores with her and I saw the joy that fashion gave her.
School of fashion
I went to a girls’ school called Chapin School. I was always styling my uniform – from dodgy things like leg warmers over tights to wearing my dad’s oversized sweaters. There was a store in the village where we would get oversized overcoats, which we wore over our school uniform.
I always wanted to study art history. I was excited when it was offered in my senior year of high school – and it was incorporated with the boys’ school, which was fun.
Exceeding expectations
At high school, Friday was a half day. I usually met my dad and we’d go to lunch and then to a museum. I went to Brown University, on Rhode Island, in 1988, to study history of art. University was amazing and I spent a semester living in Florence, Italy.