After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2000, Anna McCraney, otherwise known as Annabelle, took her talents to New York City with grand plans to conquer fashion elitism. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, she has consistently disregarded the fashion industry standard, thumbing her nose at an industry that says money means power and thin means beautiful.

She has collaborated on designs for her clothing and invitations with artists such as Andrew Kuo, Jeremy Wagner, Brian Chippendale, Glen Baldridge, Jessica Smarsch and Travis Connor. By collaborating with Space 1026 in Philadelphia, being featured in the Big Red Machine's Pattern Book, and showcasing her work at the 2003 International Contemporary Furniture Fair as part of the Apartment's Democratization of Design showcase, she has been able to shape shift: moving in and out of various art scenes with ease and reaching a larger audience. She designed the staff uniforms for Peep Restaurant on Prince Street in Soho and has dressed everyone from Rachel Bilson to Shannen Doherty, and a few of the hot MTV VJ's.

With a history of brazen, D-I-Y runway shows in such venues in New York such as LOT 61, Spa, Galapagos, and North Sixth and collaborating with Providence's now-defunct punk rock co-op, Fort Thunder, she has emerged as one of the most intriguing and innovative young New York designers. Combining fashion, theatre and music, her avant garde productions have been inspired by everything from girl gangs to bar fights to Grimm's fairy tales to the evolution of the female archetype.

Armed with a grassroots approach to marketing and a fine arts sensibility towards design, Annabelle gives her customer exquisite knitwear with hard lined, wearable, original woven designs. Color, pattern and print play a big part in making the wearer feel like a true individual. Because she refuses to fall prey to fashion trends and is bored to tears with what's hot and what's not, her line has its own style that is malleable to the buyers' own; each article has its own unique idiosyncrasies while not giving the feeling of costume. Annabelle possesses the empathy for the average woman that most designers only pretend to have.

In 2005, Anna began working for Dolce Vita, managing and buying for their first boutique in the Lower East Side of New York. She went on to launch and design their branded clothing line for the next two years, designing 16 deliveries for the company between 2006 and 2008. Since then, Anna has been consulting on other fledgling lines and working at Wood Tobe-Coburn, teaching fashion merchandising to seniors at this New York college.

Check out Anna’s new contemporary line, Miranda Darkling, and watch out for her on Bravo’s “the Fashion Show” with hosts
Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland!

www.annamccraney.com

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