Nina Garcia

Nina Garcia

Currently the Creative Director of Marie Claire Magazine, fashion designer Nina Garcia was born in Barranquilla, Colombia on 3 May 1965 to a wealthy importer. She completed her high school from Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1983. To attain higher education, she went to the Boston University from where she got her bachelor’s degree. Later, she flew to Paris to attend Ecole Superieure de la Mode and studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1992 from where she acquired a bachelor’s degree in Marketing.

Garcia’s career in the fashion industry started in early 1980s when she started working in the public relations department for Perry Ellis and later, Marc Jacobs. After discontinuing work at Marc Jacobs, Garcia started working as an assistant stylist at Mirabella and eventually got promoted to the post of marketing editor. She got a job offer from leading fashion magazine, Elle and became its fashion director in 2000. She later became the Editor of Elle in April 2008. She worked at Elle for thirteen long years till she became the Managing Director of Marie Claire Magazine on September 2, 2008. Currently, Garcia is associated with Marie Claire and oversees the magazine’s fashion coverage and operates the fashion department. She holds the position of Creative Directive at Marie Claire till date. She is revered as a fashion authority and has also participated in several television interviews like ‘The Today Show’ and ‘Good Morning America’.

The 20 year old veteran in the fast paced fashion industry, Nina has worked with phenomenal photographers, models and designers all around the world from Miuccia Prada, Stella McCartney, Michael Kors, Raf Simons, Tom Ford, Hedi Slimane and Alexander Wang. Garcia is an advocate of budding talent and an active supporter of historic fashion. She has also been a judge on the Peabody Award winner show Project Runway, since the first season. In May 2007, Nina Garcia was one of the judges for the Miss Universe Competition held in Mexico City. In March 2009, Garcia hosted the unscripted reality show called Running in Heels which followed different workers at Marie Claire all the way from interns to top notch executives. The show was produced by Tyra Banks to compete with another show featuring workers from Elle Magazine including Nina’s replacement at Elle, Anne Slowey.

Nina Garcia has not only been an extraordinary fashion editor and creative director but an author as well. Garcia’s first book was released on 5th September 2007 titled, The Little Black Book of Style which has been published by Harper Collins and translated in Portuguese and Spanish. Her second book for Harper Collins hit the book stores on 26th August 2008 titled The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own. The author’s third book was published in September 2009 and called The Style Strategy. Quite recently, in September 2010, Nina Garcia’s Look Book: What to Wear on Every Occasion was published.  She won the Oracle Award of 2010 organized by the Fashion Group International.

Nina also has a strong online presence, reaching out to millions of fans and supporters on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest. She currently resides in New York with her husband Alexander Conrod and sons Lucas and David.