Albania Rosario is the Founder and Creative Director of Fashion Designers of Latin America. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she uprooted and moved to the New York City with her parents in December of 2000. 18 years old Albania began to pursue her academic career, at CUNY Hunter College. She didn’t even speak english. now she is a successful entrepreneur, she runs multiple businness and its the founder and creative director at Fashion Designers of Latin America (previously Uptown Fashion Week), bringing Latin American designers to the world stage at New York Fashion Week and around the world. In addition to a range of talent from Latin America, the platform has attracted a plethora of talent, including designers such as Michael Costello, Marc Bouwer, Agatha Ruiz de la Prada and most recently Carolina Herrera.
Rosario’s background in advertising marketing and com- munications has helped her cultivate relationships with her local communities, bringing sponsors to her organization like Delta Air Lines, Hispanic Federation, Moët Hen- nessy USA, to name a few.
“12 Years ago I was working as a volunteer for some NYFW shows and noticed the lack of opportunities for emergent & upcoming latino designers in the industry. It was clear to me that I needed to do something, something to create more opportunities to allow emerging fashion designers to be part of the fashion circuit in New York City during NYFW” —Albania Rosario.
FASHION DESIGNERS OF LATIN AMERICAN
FDLA — has become the signature multicultural fashion event of New York City, FDLA founded it’s development on providing exposure for established, emerging and upcoming clothing designers from around the world in an effort to extend meaningful fashion trade. Accomplishing this has been an undertaking in nurturing opportunities for the publicity of international talents whose creative abilities are overflowing but financial resources are not. FDLA prides itself on continuing its work through out the year to build bridges engaging community inclusion by leading events, social activities and diversity initiatives.
It’s now been 20 years since Rosario, came from Dominican Republic, not knowing any english to running a global fashion platform that has helped develop Latin American designers to their fullest potential.