In 2007, Marcus Reynolds moved from Seattle to San Fransisco for a change of pace from his life of biochemistry. From the beginning, Marcus had wanted to take a less conventional route, but his whole family had been working in the medical industry and urged Marcus to follow the same path. Originally, he had gone to Seattle University to pursue biochemistry, but his heart was never really fully dedicated to a life of petri dishes and microscopes.
Upon moving to San Francisco, Marcus’ friend who worked for a well known fashion brand had been looking for an intern and asked Marcus if he had any sewing experience. Marcus decided to take the internship and soon enough he had gained enough knowledge about fashion design and construction to begin sewing on his own terms.
Between endless hours working as a bartender in a locally well-known bar, he would find time to test drive his skills and make corsets. Eventually his friends started noticing and soon enough, local performers started noticing too. Marcus started getting several requests for custom-made corsetted show costumes. He made dozens of these costumes as a sort of business over the course of a few years before finally realizing that he needed to make a decision on whether or not to fully go through with pursuing fashion.
For him, the decision was easy, pick up his life and find a place where he can explore the true technicalities of corporate fashion design. He knew that applying for a fashion design program was definitely a risk worth taking. However, coming from a family that didn’t fully approve of an artistic career-path made telling his family an intimidating thought, but he had his mind made up.
He sent in an application to Otis, and only Otis, to hopefully be accepted into his first year of professional art and fashion design training. After weeks of waiting for a response, Marcus received the long awaited letter. He had been accepted into The Otis College of Art and Design class of 2018. Suddenly, Marcus was aware that his life was going to change for the better.
It is now his second year at Otis and his first year in the Fashion Design program, where he is at the top of his class and is ready to see what else the fashion program will offer. Marcus will be one of the first students to complete the brand new costume design track offered for Otis Fashion Design students.
Otis offers him something that he had wanted to pursue for the longest time, but was unable to because of restrictions set forth by his family. He hopes to make his family proud by becoming as successful as he can and show them that this isn’t a silly career choice by eventually winning an Oscar for all of his hard work in costume design.
To anyone that might be experiencing the same sort of pressure to have a proper “real” career, Marcus has a few words of advice. “It’s never too late to switch your path, you should always do something that you’re passionate about and makes you happy.” That itself will be enough for anyone to lead a prosperous life.
See just a few of Marcus’ creations below:
- Brittany -
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