Teaching In Style

For as long as she could remember, Letty Sanchez loved fashion.

By the age of 8, she was showing off her dresses to everyone around. Now more than 30 years later, Sanchez owns a private fashion design school where students go on to create labels, design for New York Fashion week and work for well-known fashion houses like Michael Kors and Rue21. 

Even when Sanchez became a single mother at 16, she didn’t give up. “I knew I wanted to be a fashion designer. Being a young mother simply encouraged me to pursue my passions even more,” she says. 

 At 18, the Florida native took the train daily from West Palm Beach to attend the International Fine Arts College in Miami. “It didn’t matter how far I went, only that I had a clear vision and I was determined to make it work,” Sanchez recalls. “It’s something that I told myself back then and that I tell my students now.”

After graduating, Sanchez moved to Chicago and built a clothing label — The House of Sanchez — selling to Nordstrom, and her experience working in the industry grew. But the number of inquiries she got to teach fashion inspired Sanchez, then 28, to return to West Palm Beach in 2000 and launch a teaching program for middle and high school students. 

In 2016 that program became the THOS Fashion School of Design. The school, now located in Boca Raton, offers in-person classes (with upcoming online classes), teaching students the fundamentals of building a business, which includes designing, branding and selling, Sanchez says. 

“The industry is more than just runways and fashion shows. While it’s important — and we do them frequently— education and skill are both required to build a successful brand,” she explains. “It’s why I instill in my students to think like business owners first and designers second.”  

Sanchez’s students, who range from 18 to 50, learn to sketch, cut, sew and style anything that comes to mind. They also learn design philosophies and the research behind entrepreneurship. “With our curriculum, students start with a vision, develop it and turn it into a reality,” Sanchez says. 

While she plans to celebrate 31 years in design this fall, Sanchez says her biggest success is watching her students grow. “It’s the thrill of mentoring students and their accomplishments that I love,” she adds. “I live vicariously through them until I return to designing someday.”