Devi Vallabhaneni was a business executive of a startup company before she decided to change the course of her life, venturing into the fashion world with no artistic background at all.
She attended classes in fashion at Harper College in 2013 and she discovered that her love for embroidery and haute couture could be united together, which fueled her personal reinvention.
She began creating fashion-inspired artworks that feature detailed embroidery and beading. With her mathematical background, she maps out each design in an Excel spreadsheet instead of using sketches.
She won First Place in the 2016 Hand & Lock Embroidery Competition for her art piece called Algorithms. Her inspiration behind this work was Josef Albers’ ‘Homage to the Square’ primarily his color combinations. The masterpiece was made of 188,128 Czech and Japanese beads and 96,878 French, Italian, and vintage sequins.
Her other projects include the Garden Series, which was inspired by the legendary couturier Hubert de Givenchy. “My first garden series explored shapes, heights, textures, and color to recreate the beauty of nature using the materials of fashion and haute couture. I always loved the blues of hydrangea, the pinks of peonies, and the yellows of sunflowers,” she wrote on her website.
