Profile
Briana is a native New Orleanian, who began as a visual artist and attained her BFA in photography and graphic design in 1997 and MFA in graphics and photography in 2002. While maintaining a career freelancing and teaching art at New Orleans Charter Middle School and teaching as an adjunct professor of digital photography and imaging at Dillard University, she started to seek out her other apparent affection, fashion and accessory design and moved to New York City to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology. After taking studio classes in apparel design, woven design, draping, footwear, handbags, millinery, corsetry, and surface design, she wanted to focus on accessories and obtained an Associate Degree in Accessory Design in the 1-year program from FIT in 2006. Briana worked as a handbag and accessories technical designer/engineer at Coach Leatherware, Inc for 5 years then moved back home to
become the Fashion Design Instructor at The Fashion Institute of New Orleans and Fine Arts Director and instructor at Joseph S. Clark High School.
In July 2013, Briana opened (NOLA DDM) New Orleans, Design, Development, & Manufacture, LLC, a fashion and accessory design, development and manufacturing company in the heart of New Orleans, dedicated to providing independent designers with the resources to streamline their product development and production processes. In the Fall of 2019, she created a Fashion Design Intensive Program, NOLA DDM FASHION INSTITUTE. Her program's mission is to prepare pathways for students to attend fashion colleges and universities, acquire scholarships and to procure professional industry careers through a rigorous academic curriculum and internships within NOLA DDM and other partners. DDM Fashion Institute fosters individual creativity, quality craftmanship, sustainability, career growth, and entrepreneurship through the extensive and intensive teaching and guidance of product development from ideation to sewn products.
Sessions