Marialia Pacitto

Early life

Marialia Pacitto was born in Torrance, California, a suburb beach town in Los Angeles County. Coming from Italian descent, Pacitto raised back and forth for 17 years between her hometown and her second home in a small town outside of Rome, Italy. She attended American public school and graduated in 2007. Having a lifelong interest in fashion and zero knowledge about the industry, Pacitto finally decided to become a fashion designer in her third year of high school, establishing her self-titled brand 'MARIALIA' and launching MarialiaXo.com (now Marialia.com) in 2006.

Education

After graduating high school, Pacitto continued to establish her design career via social media while taking general college classes at a local community college; later deciding to complete her Real Estate licensing courses there. In 2008, Pacitto became a licensed real estate agent in the state of California but currently remains inactive in real estate practices. Having no formal training or education, Pacitto continued to self-teach, run her online store, and work on her brand whilst being employed by BCBG Max Azria and later Bebe, for a brief period of time. After working as a stylist for both BCBG and Bebe, Pacitto decided to pursue her brand full-time and continued to learn design on her own while expanding her own name as a designer.

Career

On March 19, 2010 at age 20, Pacitto exhibited her first ready-to-wear collection at Los Angeles Fashion Week, being one of the youngest designers to ever showcase. For the following years, Pacitto continued to expand her brand and show her collections regularly at Los Angeles Fashion Week. As popularity and sales grew, the brand gained more exposure once grabbing the attention of some well-known celebrities. In 2011, after being featured on CocoPerez.com (Perez Hilton's fashion blog), Pacitto was asked by Disney actress Brenda Song to create a custom dress for her birthday. After working with Song, Pacitto continued to gain the interest of Demi Lovato, Jenna Jameson, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Kat Von D, Anjelah Johnson, and rapper Chanel West Coast. Throughout this time, Pacitto continued to pursue other elements of the industry such as wardrobe styling and costume design, later leading her to style music videos and create custom costume and couture pieces for artists Tyga, Flo Rida, Chanel West Coast, Bebe Rexha, and Lady Gaga. Pacitto also filmed a segment and was featured as a well-known American fashion designer on popular German TV reality show Auf Und Davon on VOX. Her latest collection and fashion week showcase was covered on an episode that aired nationwide and online on April 13, 2014.

Lady Gaga G.U.Y. video

In March 2014, Lady Gaga released her video for the song "G.U.Y.", which Pacitto was asked to create custom pieces for. The custom designs were for a specific scene in the video, which featured Gaga floating on an Egyptian-inspired canal boat with muscular lifeguards surrounding her. Working with Gaga's team on the concept, Pacitto handmade 6 pairs of gold wing arm floaties to be worn by the guards, which is stated to be an original design idea of Lady Gaga herself. After the release of the video, the custom gold wing arm floaties received a lot of attention online from bloggers dedicated to Lady Gaga fashion. On March 28, 2014, the gold wing arm floaties were featured in "The G.U.Y. Hotel", an exhibit created by Lady Gaga at trendy hotel The Out NYC.