Designs On You

Mojee Shokri, 28, McLean

What: Mojee Designs turns out fancy (but not fussy) necklaces, bracelets and earrings fashioned from bold 18-karat gold and semi-precious stones.

Inspiration: Each piece is one of a kind, and many of them are designed for a particular client, Shokri says, which means she has a different muse for each. "I try to feel the style and fashion inside [my client], and I make something just for her," she says of her customers, who include both the Washington society set and their fashion-forward daughters.

How She Did It: The native of Iran hit on jewelry design more than seven years ago through a designer friend. It combined her artistic streak (she had dabbled in painting) with a desire to run her own business. "My father owned a factory and always taught me to try not to work for other people," she recalls. Now she goes on buying trips to Iran every few months for stones and gold, and does most of the fabrication in her basement studio.

Advice: A designer just starting out has to knock on doors -- literally, Shokri says. When she began, she homed in on the Keith Lippert Gallery in Georgetown, known for its collection of high-end but unstuffy jewelry, as a perfect venue for her pieces. "I loved the store, and so one day I just showed up with my things," she says. Now, the gallery regularly sells out of her work.

Signature Style: Shokri's statement-y tassel necklace, above, features moonstones, faceted citrines and mixed-metal accents. $1,980 at Keith Lippert Gallery, 2922 M St. NW, 202-965-9736.

Leann Trowbridge, 33, Washington

What: When she's not selling 1960s and '70s threads as a co-owner of Meeps Vintage Fashionette, Trowbridge also designs vintage-inspired clothing for women, from disco-ready jersey frocks to fitted jackets in geometric prints.

Inspiration: Her shop's constantly shifting inventory provides Trowbridge with an endless wellspring of ideas, she says, as does her own stash of vintage patterns (a couple hundred, at last count) and fabrics, such as colorful barkcloth or Cerruti silk. "I start with something I'd like to wear myself, and, as I'm designing and tweaking it, I can give it a test drive," she says.

How She Did It: Trowbridge began sewing as a youngster to stock her closet with "cool" clothes when her parents refused to take her to the mall. "I started sewing out of sheer necessity," she says. After studying biology at George Washington University, Trowbridge stayed on in Washington, sewing costumes for musician friends and taking a job at Betty, the now-defunct Adams Morgan boutique. There, she designed for the house label and met co-worker Danni Sharkey, who would become her partner at Meeps.

Advice: Learn to sew; it gives you a sense of how clothing is constructed and which fabrics work with which designs, Trowbridge says. "If that's something you're not interested in, maybe you should be in some other aspect of fashion, like marketing or as a stylist."

Signature Style: One of her most popular designs has been the Variety dress, shown above at left, a convertible jersey piece that can be worn as a dress, a skirt, or a top, depending on how it's draped. $58 at Meeps Vintage Fashionette, 2104 18th St. NW, 202-265-6546, http://www.meepsdc.com/.

Rakiyt Zakari, 24, Arlington

What: Multi-culti characters grace cotton T-shirts from Zakari's The Original David label, while her eponymous Rakiyt Zakari womenswear label features funky-yet-pretty dresses, faux-fur tufted vests and drapey tops.

Inspiration: The designer's pieces are infused with an eclectic sensibility that mirrors her own personal style: Zakari (whose mother is from Virginia and father from Nigeria) has wide-ranging tastes, and she says she has drawn design inspiration from Russian folk music and the Beatles. Yet she also has made a study of her Gen Y clientele. "They like the street look, but it has to look intelligent," she says. "They mix thrift store with pricey stuff -- I keep that in mind." So she designs funky T-shirts that can be worn under suits and elegant frocks that can be paired with motorcycle boots.

How She Did It: Zakari started peddling her designs to local boutiques while still a fashion-merchandising undergrad at Howard. After graduating in 2003, she did a stint in London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and started selling her designs full time the following year. She produces four womenswear collections a year and sells an average of 140 T-shirts a month, she says. Zakari is working on taking her homegrown business "out of the kitchen," as she puts it, recently hiring a sales rep.

Advice: Although many young designers are tempted to bolt for the bright lights of New York, Zakari says Washington is a great place to build a company and a name. "You could just get eaten alive," she cautions of jumping to American fashion's big pond too soon. Here, she says, the smaller fashion scene allows her to refine her designs and learn the ropes of being a business owner before she makes an eventual move to New York or possibly overseas. "I want to have my company solid [first]," she says.

Signature Style: With dressmaker details such as a bubble hem, obi sash and jersey shoulder ties, Zakari's little black dress, above, is anything but basic. The custom piece is $230, available to order through Alex Boutique, 1919 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 202-296-2610, http://www.alexboutiquedc.com/.