As the founder and designer behind New York City-based luxury womenswear label Markarian, Alexandra O’Neill counts celebrities, royalty and even first lady Dr. Jill Biden among her clients. But growing up in rural Colorado, O’Neill’s grandmother was her earliest supporter—and also the person who taught her how to sew in the first place. “My grandparents had a fur shop, and my grandfather used to design and sew the coats with my grandmother’s help,” O’Neill tells Observer of being surrounded by design from an early age.
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Even after O’Neill’s grandmother stopped making furs following her grandfather’s passing, she continued to keep her sewing box by her side, mending clothing and teaching O’Neill those same skills. “I would lay the fabric out on my grandmother’s floor in her bedroom, and she would help me put together whatever I was trying to make,” she says of getting her start at 10 years old. “I didn’t even work with a pattern when I first started; I would basically just drape the fabric.”
Before she graduated from college, O’Neill, who had relocated to New York City, had already founded a contemporary clothing line with the help of her older sister. But after eight years, the New York University alum was ready to try something new. “I wanted to do something that felt very slow fashion and offered women a service that’s not really offered as widely as it is to men, where women could come in and have a hand in designing their own pieces,” explains O’Neill, who officially launched Markarian in 2017. “I put together a ready-to-wear collection, but from the beginning, I knew that I wanted a customization element........