Our first guest on Fibonacci Sequins is Nicki Thomson, a fellow fashion designer, Young Adult book-lover as well as being an intern at Microsoft this summer. We immediately spotted Nicki in a crowd because of her gorgeous, bright green kiwi dress! It turns out it was a piece Nicki had made herself. We loved the fashion choices Nicki brought with her and are very excited to share her story.

Tell us a little about you.

I am a Senior at Tufts University studying Computer Engineering, and next year I’ll be staying at Tufts for my Master’s in Electrical Engineering. When not busy with school I sing with the Tufts Opera Ensemble, and I’m a member of the women’s fraternity Alpha Omicron Pi. Other than that I like to read and reread Young Adult fiction (which at 21 I might be officially too old for, but I’m unlikely to let that stop me.) Currently my favorite book is Bitterblueby Kristin Cashore, I have lost track of how many times I have read it.

Tell us about what you’re wearing.

So for one of the outfits, I wanted to look summery with a hint of professionalism. I paired an orange blouse with a flowery skirt. To add the businesslike touch I threw in the denim blazer and my favorite handbag. Finally to keep the outfit fun I wore my panda shoes and my big purple cat eye glasses.

Next up I wanted to show something a little more edgy. I paired a dark red button down with a black waistcoat. Sometimes I finish off this outfit with a pair of dark skinny jeans, but as I’m more of a skirt person in general I opted instead for a pleated denim skirt with knee high socks and of course my good old black flats. No outfit is complete without my ability to see it so I finished it off with my large circular red glasses to match the shirt.

Finally I have my kiwi dress. This dress is one of a kind, made for me, by me. Kiwis are my favorite fruit and when I saw the kiwi quilting fabric in a fabric store I knew I had to make a dress out of it. The sewing pattern I used is McCalls, and it had multiple options for the final pattern. I chose one with a shorter skirt and ruffles at the sleeves, I decided to do the ruffles and the waist band in light pink since I love the color combination of pink and green, I think it reminds me of candy. Overall the dress took a couple days to make with the hardest part probably being the ruffles at the shoulders.

How did your style evolve to what it is now?

I’ve always just picked out clothing I liked the look of rather than paying attention to what is currently fashionable.  A few years ago I made a New Year’s resolution not to wear jeans more than three times a week. For me looking back it seems like the easiest resolution ever, because now I’m unlikely to wear jeans more than three times a month. The reason I made that resolution however, was because at the time I realized that my best days, that is the days I was happiest and felt the most confident, were the ones where I picked what I was going to wear carefully rather than falling back to a pair of jeans and a cute top. Instead I got more into skirts and dresses as an alternative to jeans.

I started making a few of my own clothes not long after that, because sometimes I get really specific ideas of an item of clothing I want but haven’t been able to find in stores. When I started making some of my own clothes is when I think I really started to express my personality through what I’m wearing.

Any advice for a young person thinking about getting into a STEM field?

Whatever stage of education you are in I highly recommend trying new things and exploring your STEM interests (and your other interests too :P.) I went into college with the intention of studying Mechanical Engineering but after trying some Computer Science and Electrical Engineering classes I found my academic passion in Computer Engineering. Basically you’re never going to know what you like until you try it, so try everything to find what you really like.

What would you say is the project you’ve done that you’re proudest of?

In my high school Theatre Studies class my entire class (of which there were only four of us) worked together to devise a piece of political theatre using pieces of campaign speeches, news clips, and more. We put a lot of time and creativity into the performance with puppets, character switching and even some singing. When it came to finally performing it, I had so much fun and it was one of those rare moments where something we had started turned out exactly as we wanted it to.

Thanks so much to Nicki for sharing her story and time with us. We wish her so much love and luck this upcoming school year and will make sure to follow her engineering, fashion and musical adventures!

Love,

Dona + Beth