Apparel appeal
UW-Stout grad’s garment makes magazine cover

If you glanced at the February cover of Vogue magazine, you saw the work of UW-Stout graduate Tuan Nguyen. Renée Zellweger is wearing it. It’s all she’s wearing.

With tousled blonde hair, the Academy Award-winning actress sports a gray sweater dress. The cashmere V-neck is part of the Michael Kors spring collection.

“It was the people at Michael Kors that told us, ‘Hey, your sweater made it to the cover,’ ” Nguyen said during a telephone interview. “That was a big deal for us.”

Nguyen, 26, works at Knit Illustrated in New York City’s Fashion Center. The company turns designers’ patterns into upscale apparel.

“We’re really proud of him,” said Gindy Neidermyer, apparel design program director at UW-Stout. “What’s amazing about Tuan is how quickly he’s done it.”

Nguyen oversaw production of Zellweger’s sweater. He served as liaison between Michael Kors and Knit Illustrated.

“I supervise the process,” Nguyen said. “If there are any questions about the sweater, I would go ask the design team at Michael Kors. If the design team at Michael Kors would want to change something on that sweater, they would tell me.”

Nguyen’s company completed the sweater in August. It’s a size medium and retails for $1,195.

“The development process takes three weeks, but the knitting time is like a week,” Nguyen said.

The sweater was made on a flatbed machine in Knit Illustrated’s factory in China. The company also has a New York factory.

“There’s a machine that knits it, but a person has to push the machine manually row-by-row,” Nguyen said. “It’s not how you see the old ladies do it. It’s not like that.”

Nguyen said he isn’t sure how the garment wound up on Zellweger’s torso. He suspects that Michael Kors’ camp sent the top to Vogue magazine for use in photo shoots. The Michael Kors company did not return a message for comment.

“We were pretty surprised, but at the same time, we’ve seen our stuff on the cover of other magazines,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen isn’t the only Blue Devil to have work published in fashion magazines. Fellow 2005 graduate Jill Birschbach has had clothing photographed in People and In Touch Weekly.

“That was a hot class,” Neidermyer said.

Originally from Minneapolis, Nguyen has worked at Knit Illustrated for about a year. The company has 22 employees at its New York shop. The firm also makes clothes for Michael Kors protégé Derek Lam.

“He’s an up-and-coming designer,” Nguyen said. “He’s establishing himself.”

While interning in New York, Nguyen walked into a job at Knit Illustrated. His knowledge of knitting, which he learned at UW-Stout, landed him the position, he said.

“That’s how I knew about knit,” he said from his New York office. “When I first talked to my boss, I recognized a machine that he has. When I finished my internship, I asked my boss for a job here. It was really unconventional. There was no interview.”

Apparel design majors must take a knit design class in their junior year at UW-Stout, Neidermyer said.

“The sweater industry is a huge product in the apparel industry,” she said.

The Vogue cover will look great in Nguyen’s portfolio, even if the sweater doesn’t bear his name.

“People don’t really pay attention to who makes it,” he said. “They give more credit to Michael Kors. But the design team, they know who made it.”

Nguyen plans to stay in New York. He hopes his experience at Knit Illustrated will lead to his own fashion line.

“I would love to design someday,” he said.

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