Growing older inevitably makes it harder to be naive, especially when experience gives you enough evidence to know that things won’t always work out simply because you want them to. You learn to account for disappointment and become more realistic about what you’re capable of. As a result, you lower your expectations, understanding that hard work doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’ll get what you want. Still, none of this means you have to stop hoping anyway.
29-year-old Kyra Buenviaje has already seen enough of the fashion industry to know how unpredictable a creative career can be. The Filipino designer began working in New York as an intern in 2019 after studying at UP Diliman and RMIT, later graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2020. Since then, she’s worked with Zac Posen and Danielle Guizio before finding her way to French Connection, where she now serves as Design Director.
And like most creatives, her career hasn’t exactly followed a neat trajectory to get there. She’s had to adjust accordingly to everything life threw at her, though the young designer she used to be isn’t someone she’s interested in leaving behind.
MEGA sat down with Buenviaje to discuss what six years in New York fashion have taught her about her journey and why a little naivety might not be such a bad thing after all.
For someone encountering Kyra Buenviaje for the first time, how would you introduce yourself and the kind of designer you are?
BUENVIAJE: I would say there’s a duality in how I design. There’s the industry professional who can design towards any brand assignment—may it be posh and minimal or commercial and preppy. Then there’s the more experimental side of my personal work where I take more unconventional routes and design with more emotion and curiosity.
You graduated from RISD, but you’d already begun building your career in New York while studying. Can you walk us through how that started?
BUENVIAJE: I graduated RISD in 2020 after a stint at RMIT in Australia and two and a half years at UP Diliman. I started working as an intern in NYC in 2019 and had my first job in 2021.
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When you first came to New York, what did you imagine building a career in fashion there would be like, and what did you quickly learn was different in reality?
BUENVIAJE: I definitely had the lens of a young naive dreamer and saw fashion more as an art form and as a space to experiment and create. Younger me thought that I could try and work 20x harder than anyone else and that I could be creating anything I wanted thereafter.
I quickly learned, as many would agree, that at the end of the day fashion in America is a business, commerciality has to be priority so that the lights can be kept on and that you can fund the more emotional pieces. Also that fashion is a team sport! Doing it solely on your own is a recipe for disaster. You need people you can rely on, may it be a team of 3, a team of 50 or a factory overseas you can trust.
You’ve worked with names like Zac Posen and Danielle Guizio. What did those experiences teach you about fashion that you couldn’t have learned in school?
BUENVIAJE: My internship at Zac Posen was my first introduction to the industry. So there were a multitude of things to absorb. I worked for his design team of 4 and they were so amazing, talented and kind. As an intern, I didn’t want any down time, I constantly observed—how everything is connected, how things flow, who talks to who and why, etc.
Zac had an in-house atelier with incredible seamstresses/patternmakers, so being able to shadow the designers and assist in making actual show-stopping pieces was a dream. Within that summer alone I met Sarah Jessica Parker, Meghan Trainor and Winnie Harlow.
BUENVIAJE: My time at Danielle Guizio taught me so much on how to operate in a smaller team, you had to be flexible and work where needed. Danielle knew her customers more than any of the people I’ve worked for and it was exciting to make a product that was niche but sought-after because there was a clear path of where it wanted to go.
Working at these places is like being in the actual jungle. You adapt, you survive, you flourish. In school they prepare you with all the tools you need, but there’s really nothing like being out there—living and breathing it.
Between studying at RISD and working professionally, was there ever a moment when what you learned in the classroom collided with how the industry actually works?
BUENVIAJE: Absolutely, I loved RISD for being a space where you can be radical. Where being different is celebrated and originality is your excellence. There’s little space in the industry for that if you don’t have the resources, especially as a recent graduate. The industry, especially here in the US, is very technical, calculated and commodified. That’s where success is greatly found. At the end of the day, the most common way to get in the industry is as manpower. Which was an obvious shock coming from how you end fashion school with such a high regard for what you have evolved into as your own artist.
New York fashion can look glamorous from the outside. What has been the hardest or least glamorous part of establishing yourself there?
BUENVIAJE: The hustle for sure! Especially when I first started, it was hard to balance the starter income so at one point I lived deep in Brooklyn with 3 other roommates and lived off of toast and scrambled eggs. I wanted to be in the office first and leave last. I wanted to learn everything and be that person who was so reliable because she was always there and ready for the next task.
I’ve had to throw trash out to the curb. I’ve broken a shoe running around the garment district in the high heat of the summer while carrying multiple samples, I’ve been yelled at, spent hours sewing on buttons, many more! Somehow… it really felt like there wasn’t any small task, it was good to feel needed—to know that if I can accomplish one task—they know they can give me another one because I can get the job done.
Was there ever a point when you questioned whether you could make a career in New York? What got you through it?
BUENVIAJE: 100%. I’ve quit a job, have been laid off by a company that shuttered its doors and have gotten fired as well. The industry is so dynamic in its excitement but equally its fickleness. Between that, fighting to keep a visa and trying to live out the dream that was already playing out, you can’t help but feel like life was happening to you and agency was nowhere near your hands.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called my mom crying that I wanted it all to stop. But in those same calls to her and family and friends who have reminded me that I am more than my job and that life was to be enjoyed, I found the clarity I needed to slow it down and actually see how much I love the craft, how proud I am of myself and that this career is mine to make whatever I want it to be. I was good at it, it gave me so much joy and there was so much more to live out—so many people to dress-up!
You’re now a Design Director at French Connection. How did you arrive at that position, and what has stepping into a leadership role taught you?
BUENVIAJE: I was hired at FC as a creative designer. All the designing had been done in the UK since the conception of the brand over 50 years ago but the UK and US customers were starting to take different tracks. The US team who had been nestled in the garment district for decades wanted their own designer and was finally granted permission to hire one.
The assignment at first was to work closely with the UK team and make capsules that were for the US market while working hand-in-hand with the US team to satisfy the market’s needs. After sketching into one season, it went ablaze. The US team wanted more agency. In 3 months time, I was promoted into Design Manager. We started to build the team fast and the design hub of FC US was up and running.
BUENVIAJE: It was so fast how everything happened and I just really had to take each day and be whatever I needed to be for the company. Becoming a manager became a necessity at that time because I was desperate for help. More than leading a team, the bigger part of the job was representing the department and showing up cross-functionally and of course answering to what leadership needed—that was very new to me. I had to do all of that and then execute. It was a lot but it was incredibly exciting to see so much of my ideas come to life in tandem with a company who helped work towards a product they were craving for. I’ve never felt more part of a team and more heard.
After 2 years, the established G-III saw our potential and licensed us into their widely known portfolio, and in a few months I was promoted to Design Director. Today, we are continuing to add into the growing team. I currently lead both the womenswear ready-to-wear and dress line with 4 seasons each a year.
BUENVIAJE: Stepping into this leadership role reminded me of how fulfilling leadership is. I was student council president at my high school and have taken all kinds of leadership roles when I lived in the Philippines but for years trying to make it in the US, I’ve put my head down, followed and worked, knowing that at one point my time will come. I kind of forgot to take on the ropes, I forgot I could!
Now I get to manage and work closely with a talented team of designers, product/fabric developers and technical designers and it’s been one of my favorite parts of the job. I get to help make it all symphonic by collaboration and by making daily decisions that, not just keep the work flow going, but help shape the brand’s ethos—it’s all so beautifully magical and difficult and fulfilling!
How has being Filipino shaped the way you navigate New York’s fashion industry or the way you think about design?
BUENVIAJE: I think I’ve been so proudly Filipino in the way I’ve carried the joy through it all. I try to get a laugh out of it every day. I try to keep the work human and warm. As much as I try to stay resilient with all the disappointment, I also try to celebrate the highs as much as I can, big or small. Most importantly, I work to always be kind. They’re just clothes at the end of the day! Character is still priority and I believe how we conduct ourselves as Filipinos, may it be our hospitality, our joy, or our sense of togetherness is more important than the output of the work.
What do you wish you had known when you were younger about pursuing a career in fashion, especially for young Filipino designers hoping to work internationally?
BUENVIAJE: This question is quite tricky because looking back now, I celebrate how naive I was—how unbelievably Filipino I was with my relentless belief in a dream. I feel like all that raw wishfulness I’ve unknowingly packed up has kept me running with fuel in the tank.
Life will happen the way it will, but I think knowing how much I wanted this and believing I was good at it helped so much when it felt like it was the complete opposite. I say stay naive, be so wishful but be open with your feet flat on the ground… and know that with the right mix of that, a ton of hard work and a bit of luck, you can keep landing on heights, one after the other and some that have never even crossed your mind.
After everything you’ve accomplished so far, what still scares you about building a life in fashion?
BUENVIAJE: I definitely feel so grateful for where I am today. Industry standard for a director is 10 years + but with the 6 years I’ve had from internship to today being director before turning 30 years old seems unreal! It’s definitely scary to feel like it will all quickly go away or that it will get taken back.
More than that I am definitely scared I will grow out of love with it. It can get extremely stressful and exhaustingly challenging so I really try to watch how much of it I allow myself to handle so that I don’t burn out to the point of no return. I’m definitely scared of that.
As you continue into the next chapter of your career, what do you want the name Kyra Buenviaje to eventually represent?
BUENVIAJE: As I continue this journey I would like the name Kyra Buenviaje to represent talent from a hard-working immigrant who never forgot to find the joy in making it happen. My last name Buenviaje means ‘good voyage’ and I hope my name and my work can represent a voyage—something that moves you, maybe it never ends, maybe it’s great, maybe it’s not and maybe that’s okay and you’ll come along for the ride anyways.
Photos: KYRA BUENVIAJE (via Instagram)
