Ximena Valero

Biography

Ximena Valero was born in Mexico City to Carmen Jarillo-Yañez, a school teacher and housewife, and José L. Valero, M.D. a plastic surgeon. Ximena's parents moved to Tijuana, Mexico in 1982. She started studying fashion during summer breaks at the age of 8. It was with her mother's influence that she began to study fashion and couture lessons in Tijuana. At which point, fashion design grew to be her passion, eventually leading her to become a student of fashion design at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, in neighboring San Diego. She started designing women's apparel in her first workshop in Tijuana, in the late 1990s. In 1999, she was offered and accepted a paid internship in the design department at Victoria's Secret & Limited Brands by Victoria Secret's CEO Grace Nichols. After her 4 month internship ended she started working in New York as a free-lance fashion designer. In early 2006, she moved back to the Tijuana-San Diego area. During the following two years, she developed new designs incorporating Frida Kalhlo's look into her apparel creations and also designed women's shoes and pets apparel. By late 2007, she moved to Los Angeles, where she has her current workshop and showroom studio. During 2007 and 2008, she has appeared in several Fashion Week scenarios around Latin America and the US, and she was the winner of the 2007 International Award for Designer of the Year for Excellence in Evening Wear in 2007's Miami's Fashion Week. On October 14, 2008, she was appointed one of 15 members of 2008's Tijuana's Hall of Fame, at the Canaco (National Chamber of Commerce), selected by the Tijuana's Image Committee, headed by Tijuana's tycoon, José Galicot Behar. Her major contribution to fashion in 2009 undoubtedly, was the so-called "Transformable" Fashion, that is, women's apparel that can be worn in many different ways.