San Leandro High student has designs on career in fashion

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jun 9, 2009 | by Karen Holzmeister

SAN LEANDRO -- When she was 10, Alejandra Bonilla decided on a career as a fashion designer.

Six years later, she is fast-tracking her way toward that goal.

Bonilla, who creates and sells silk-screened women's cotton shirts, won the top prize late last month in the Bay Area Regional Business Plan Competition. Her company's name? "alb," her initials in lowercase letters. The 16-year-old beat 1,000 other students at the classroom and semifinal stages, winning $1,500 and a trip to New York City in October for the national competition.

If Bonilla surpasses 30 other national finalists, culled from among 20,000 student competitors, she'll receive $10,000 toward either a future business venture or education.

"This is my lifelong dream," Bonilla, who is ending her sophomore year at San Leandro High School, said last week. "I feel it's in my reach."

Bonilla is a student in the school's Academy of Business and Finance, which partners with Merrill Lynch's Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship to teach students how to create and carry out business plans.

The daughter of Juan and Aurora Bonilla, she is completing her first year in the academy.

One of her two older brothers, a former academy student, told her about the program.

She has focused on designing shirts for young women, such as herself, while studying business costs, profits and surviving in a difficult economy. She purchased plain cotton shirts, then had designs such as stars, crowns and other emblems silk-screened on them.

Bonilla said she hopes to attend the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco after she graduates in 2011.

Karen Holzmeister covers San Leandro. Reach her at 510-293-2478 or kholzmeister@bayareanewsgroup.com.