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![7) NYT > Zac Posen]( "7) NYT > Zac Posen")
| Zac Posen is one of the most precocious new designers working in American fashion today. And he may be the most successful exemplar of a change taking place, at the turn of the millennium, in the traditional rules behind the designer business model.
Mr. Posen, like many of his young peers, began designing under his own label directly out of college (Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, in his case), rather than working for an established fashion house. He also aggressively pursued financial deals at an early age, securing licenses for jeans and hosiery, and the backing of the rap mogul Sean Combs, to give his brand a high profile.
"If Karl Lagerfeld can sell a dress at H&M and still make Chanel couture well, I'm fascinated and I'm not worried about it," Mr. Posen said in an interview in Vogue in 2005. "I don't believe in the conservatism of fashion. Fashion is a thrill."
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Mr. Posen grew up in New York, the son of a lawyer, Susan Posen, who manages his business, and the painter Stephen Posen. Through family friends, he was introduced to the fashion world and in his teens began internships with Nicole Miller and the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At college, he gained early fame when the model Naomi Campbell asked for one of his dresses.
Mr. Posen's signature collections, which he began showing in 2001, when he was just turning 21, have evolved from vampish, old Hollywood style bias cut silk dresses and flirty butterfly chiffons into intricately themed gowns that take their inspiration from something simple in nature seashells, raffia or tumbleweed, for example.
Cathy Horyn, writing in The New York Times, said of his spring 2007 collection: "You could feel a 25 year old designer seize his authority. His is a generation that doesn't like slick clothes. It wants romance, a kind of sexy gorgeousness, and so he sent out a soft white pantsuit with a many ruffled blouse in champagne color silk, a pair of tailored gray trousers with a striking cream organza blouse and a glossy tank minidress with a lavishly feathered hem. And that was just the beginning of the show."
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