About

Catherine Lochtefeld Sirianni

Fashion Design Facilitator

Haute Couture, Ready-to-Wear and Textile Designer

Traditionally trained, world traveller, technically accomplished, observant, serious about fun, problem-solver, experienced in bringing out the best.

Catherine has lived, worked and created on Nantucket Island for over 50 years. Her first job, on island at age 16, was in retail with a French connection, and while she has expanded her interests, fashion continues to be a deep love. She learned to sew at a very young age and took textile classes at the Artist’s Association, the Nantucket Island School of Design & the Arts, and produced commissions for Nantucket Designs for Children. The Fashion & Design Workshop, founded in 2003, and becoming an LLC in 2022 has allowed her to pursue and share these passions.

Her zeal for travel has taken her to four continents, exploring fashion, textiles, history, architecture and the arts in Peru, India, China, Eastern, Western and Northern Europe. Her greatest strengths, according to Gallup Poll’s CliftonStrengths, are trust in connections and that almost every event has meaning; she possesses the ability to spot relative patterns and issues, creating insightful, future-oriented, alternative ways to problem solve and move forward.

During her training in Paris at the Chambre syndicale de la couture parisienne’s Cours Spécial Supérieur, Catherine interned in the studios of Mariot Chanet, Jean-Louis Scherrer, and À La Plage in production of the Fall 1996 Collection, textile design, runway assistance, and preparation for the Asian Tour, and catalogue creation, respectively. Upon return to New York, she worked for a year in New York City at Halston, Macy’s and Bloomingdales’ back office, and in theGarment District, discovering, in fact, that the Devil does wear High End Couture. Returning to teaching French in Alexandria, VA, she costumed four plays (Our Town, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, The Mouse That Roared, and Two Gentlemen of Verona) and two musicals (42nd Street and Little Shop of Horrors), and founded and directed a summer fashion camp from 1998-2018. Moving to Buffalo in 2000, she costumed, co-founded and facilitated a French Culture camp from 2006-2013, and has led various Workshops in English and French, including Nantucket Fashion Workshops in 2015 and 2019 and at the American Association of Teachers of French of WNY Summer Immersion in 2022.

If you would like to participate in one of the workshops, please click below to apply! We would love to work with you!!

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