Devi Vallabhaneni

For nearly 100 years, couturiers have been the ultimate artists. By defining beauty through shape, volume, texture, and line, they showed us a new form of art.

I think, feel, and see like a couturier.

Couturiers tell stories. They convey emotions through clothes. My work tries to do the same, using the very materials that once made the best of Haute Couture. I fell in love with Haute Couture because I believe it exists purely for beauty.

Since 2013, I've devoted myself to this, knowing that behind its beauty lies the precision, calculation and even geometry of exceptional craftsmanship. No great art is possible without it.

Through systematic and meticulous work, using old tools to make something new, I transform the best I’ve seen on the Paris runway, applying the same attention to detail and the same exacting care to create a new form of art, Abstract Couture®.

Every famous couturier also had the most exquisite gardens. Designing a garden and designing a collection are one in the same. Fashion was the couturier’s first love, and gardens were the second. They spent as much time on their gardens as they did on their collections.

Each piece I design requires endless hours of study, almost as if I'm proving a theorem with mult...

Harper College, Fashion Studies, Palatine, IL
Textiles Certificate (2016)
Apparel Construction Certificate (2015)
Fashion Design Certificate (2014)

Hand & Lock, London
Haute Couture Embroidery Course (2015)

Chicago Weaving School
Weaving I Class (2015)

Central Saint Martins, London
Textiles Course (2014)

Harvard Business School
Completed MBA 1997

University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
Completed BS in Accountancy in 1991

Helm Contemporary Solo Show (NYC, NY), July 2024
Sarah Gormley Group Show (Columbus, OH), May 2024
Neiman Marcus Installation (Los Angeles, CA), December 2023
Sarah Gormley Gallery Solo Show (Columbus, OH), January 2023
Sarah Gormley Gallery Group Show (Columbus, OH), September 2022
La Cienega Design District Installation (Los Angeles, CA), April 2022
Galerie Odile Texier (Paris, France), July 2021
Galerie Mayaro (Paris, France), November 2019
Moxy Hotel Opening (Columbus, OH), October 2019
Center Program Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), September 2019
Neiman Marcus Store Windows (Los Angeles, CA), October 2018
Neiman Marcus Art Show (Los Angeles, CA), October 2018
ArtUp! Lille 2018 (Lille, France), February 2018
Luxury Garage Sale, In-Store Décor (Chicago, IL), January 2018
Galerie Bettina (Paris, France), September 2017
Festival of Embroidery (London, UK), July 2017