Newport Harbor graduate launches fashion line

Emily Jane Barker, a 1997 graduate of Newport Harbor High School, recently launched her own fashion line, Emily Jane Clothing, which debuted at San Francisco’s Fashion Week in August.

A tennis star at Newport Harbor, Barker went to Boise State on a tennis scholarship, then returned home and went on to San Francisco’s Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising to pursue her interest in clothing design.

Growing up in Newport Beach, Barker “learned how to spin wool on her great aunt’s spinning wheel and make her first pieces on her grandmother’s sewing machine, using her two sisters as mannequins,” according to Barker’s website.

Her first job after graduating from the Institute was on the design team at St. John Knits in Irvine.

For information, go to www.emilyjaneclothing.com.

— Sue Thoensen