Born in Colombia, Nina Garcia fell in love with fashion at an early age, and her father encouraged her to pursue it as a career. As she recalled in an interview, “Culturally, back then, opportunities and expectations for women didn’t go beyond finding a suitable husband and getting married. My father had a big problem with that. He wanted to take us out of that mindset.” So she was sent to school in Massachusetts, later going on to earn degrees from Boston University and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
Garcia began her career in the public relations department at Perry Ellis. She started at Elle magazine as an associate editor, working her way up to fashion director. Her recipe for success in fashion is straightforward: “You need somebody to give you a chance, and there are a lot of people that will give you a chance if you work really hard and you have a passion for it.”
Garcia left Elle to become creative director of Marie Claire, but returned to Elle in 2017 as the editor-in-chief — the first Latina woman to head up a major fashion magazine in the U.S. Reflecting on her role in the fashion industry and her drive to tell women’s stories, she said, “It is incredibly important now more than ever to give women a platform.… I think there is a real responsibility to use our platforms for the better of our world, and especially of women’s lives, and talk about issues that might not be comfortable.” Garcia is perhaps most widely known for her longtime role as a tough but supportive judge on TV’s hit reality series Project Runway, which began its 20th season in June 2023. For her many achievements, in 2022 Garcia was named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year. “I finally realized I brought something different to the table because of my background,” she reflects, “because of my Latin American culture. That was a source of strength for me.”
Instagram: @ninagarcia
Twitter: @ninagarcia
