Tell us about your professional background.
"My unconventional approach to fashion began early. My mom is an amazing seamstress and we used to collaborate throughout my early life. It wasn't until years later that I decided to take my childhood interest seriously. I studied the craft of patternmaking at Apparel Arts, a trade school in San Francisco, and parlayed it with an internship with Berkeley designer Erica Tanov. I left a corporate marketing job to manage Erica Tanov's Fillmore Street shop and started my own line several years ago. To this day, my mom makes most of my samples, which is a gift in so many ways."

Michele, in her living room, wears a Janezic jacket, Janezic silk blouse, Rogan jeans, Pippa Small necklace, and Dries Van Noten heels.

Photographed by Molly DeCoudreaux