FOLLOWING A DREAM
Area woman pursues her passion for design
Madelange Laroche will feature her wedding attire collection today at the Barnes Foundation, a day before the Elkins Park resident and Haitianborn nurse graduates from Moore College of Art & Design.
By the weekend Laroche, who moved to the United States in 2001, will have earned her fashion design degree while working overnight two nights a week as a personal care nurse, working overnight weekends as a licensed practical nurse at Foulkeways at Gwynedd in Lower Gwynedd, and also taking care of her developmentally disabled brother.
The fashion show at the Barnes features collections and eveningwear designed by seniors at Moore College, a renowned art and design school in Philadelphia.
For Laroche, 37, it is the culmination of a dream that began when she was a young girl, a dream that she had to put aside several times throughout her life.
Fashion design was a passion of Laroche’s since she was a young girl, she said in a recent interview.
“It was always my first interest as long as I could remember,” said Laroche, who moved to the United States with her siblings in 2001 to join their mother.
She attended an art institute in Florida but dropped out so she could learn English better. She was also advised to pursue nursing as a career. She became a Home Health Aide (HHA), then a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), and attended the Eastern Suffolk BOCES Practical Nursing Program in New York to become an LPN. “I left fashion as a dream,” she said. But more and more, Laroche, of Elkins Park, felt the pull of the fashion industry.
By November 2013, she had made a decision. “I can be always an LPN, but if I can’t go to fashion school, that is it,” she said. “I went to my advisor and said, ‘I want to go to fashion school.’ ”
People told her she was making a mistake.
But approaching the advisor turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Laroche explained that another student had heard her, explained that she wanted to be a fashion designer as well, and encouraged Laroche to apply to Moore.
In spring 2014 she began working toward her fashion degree.
Laroche won the Atlantic City Fashion Week Season 10 Students’ Showcase in February 2017, and also the Frank Augostino’s critic award earlier this month, she said in an e-mail.
The wedding attire collection that will be shown at the Barnes Foundation features five dresses, in addition to metallic-themed eveningwear, according to a press release from Moore. Recently, renowned designer Adrienne Vittadini – herself a Moore alumnae – visited the school and gave tips to Laroche and others on their pieces.
Laroche’s dream is to someday open a bridal salon. For her, the love of fashion is not just in designing clothes – it is in following the process from start to finish.
“I do fashion just to enjoy every minute of it,” she said.
To contact Laroche about any of her creations, send her an e-mail at mlaroche@moore.edu or at madelangelaroche@gmail.com.
For more information about the fashion show, go online at moore.edu.