Long before he designed couture for Beyoncé and Sandra Bullock and Taylor Swift and Meryl Streep, Angel Sanchez learned the basics of dressmaking by osmosis.
By the time Angel was 7, his mother, Maria Teresa, had opened a trimming shop and become a top seamstress in their quiet mountain town of Valera, Venezuela, tailoring wedding and cocktail dresses for fellow residents. The fashion magazines surrounding the sewing machine occasionally catching his eye, Angel, the fourth of six children, eventually assisted in the business—but only to help support his family, not out of an urgent desire to create.
It wasn’t until after Sanchez graduated from Venezuela’s Simón Bolivar University—with a seemingly incongruous architecture degree—that womenswear evolved into a hobby, then a vocation, then an art form. With no formal training in the trade, Sanchez won the first American fashion competition in which he entered, ultimately ushering him into the international market.
In the decades since he founded his fashion house in 1987, Sanchez has seen his graceful, subtly dramatic and uncluttered designs grace magazine covers, dazzle red carpets and entice customers at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Saks. He judged three seasons of “Project Runway Latin America” and has long been a staple on the whirlwind of international Fashion Weeks.
Until recently, that is. Like many of us, Sanchez migrated to South Florida in part to slow down. In 2018, he and his husband, interior designer Christopher Coleman, moved from New York to Delray Beach and opened Sanchez + Coleman Studios, pooling their talents into a joint business and running it on their own terms. For the 62-year-old Sanchez, this has meant working less and enjoying life more.
“I’m very happy right now,” he says, speaking to Boca magazine over a steak lunch at Papa’s Tapas. “I’m looking for a peaceful moment in my life. Delray gives me peace of mind, compared to New York. … I have the possibility to think a little harder and explore new things. That is why I’m here right now, to have the chance to see my career in perspective.”
In this conversation, Sanchez discusses that remarkable career—how it began, where it took him and where it’s going next.
As a young boy, what appealed to you about what your mom did for a living?
When you are a kid, you absorb everything. I was really fascinated about my mom’s job. But I would never think to become a fashion designer. My mom had to work doing this, but it was not a career—not something I wanted to become. But in the back of my mind, it was there.
I worked with her when I was about 14 until 17. I remember my mom’s customers liked me to recommend what kind of trimming or color matched with this and that; they wanted my opinion. I think in that moment I developed my skill in terms of details.
What led you to pursue architecture in college?
It was the only way to translate my ideas of creativity. I never thought my mom’s job would be my future job. It’s like when you see your mom cooking, and one day you become a chef. Still, if I had a choice to go to college and start a new career, I would not go to fashion. I would go to architecture again. It gives you the skills for proportion, for 3D ideas. The discipline I got from being an architect, and applied in fashion, really helped me. … And now that I’m going back to architecture and interior design, I realize the design process is so similar, in how you put together pieces.
Both need to reflect the owner’s personality.
Exactly. In the beginning of my career in Venezuela, I used to work more custom-made, more person to person, and understand this lady is classic or this lady is sexy or this lady is more modern. So I tried to give them what they were looking for, and not just my point of view. I’m kind of a psychologist in terms of fashion, and with interiors, you have to do the same—to understand the client, to give them what they are looking for.
Do you surprise your clients sometimes—taking the look somewhere they didn’t expect?
Part of my job is to push them out of their comfort zone without ignoring their personalities. You cannot give exactly what they want. You have to give a little surprise. They’ll say, “I was thinking in red, but with a ruffle here…” “OK, why do you need me? There are so many red dresses in that pattern; let’s try another color. Let’s see how the orange looks.” That is a way to push people but not impose my ideas. I always try to respect my clients’ taste.
How did you make the transition from architecture to fashion?
I wasn’t really in love with my career choice, during my six years [studying architecture]. I was preparing myself to be the best architect possible, and I was a very good student. At the same time, I was doing sketches of women’s dresses around the blueprints of my architecture projects.
My first real job was making a wedding dress for one of my friends from college. It was a very geometric dress. But I had started working in a big architectural firm in Caracas. And I started getting frustrated. It takes such a long time to see a building built. And I was working in a major firm. You were under a company name, and I think part of my ego was to do this thing that becomes mine.
I started spending my salary as an architect on fabrics. After two and a half years working as an architect, I decided to quit and open my first studio in Caracas.
It started getting so much attention and momentum that three months after the opening, I completely quit my job as an architect.
In that moment in 1986, fashion was not recognized as an important artistic discipline. Now you see fashion in museums. … I don’t want to sound pretentious, but in some ways I feel I was part of the pioneers of change in Venezuela, where photography, fashion, graphic design were more respected. I had a possibility to change that perception.
How did you get noticed in the U.S.?
I wasn’t known until 1995 when I came to an event in Miami called Ibero-American Fashion Week. I came with a collection, and I won two awards. But I didn’t want to start my career here. I wanted to go to New York and put myself in a major competition.
I went with the same winning collection to New York. I didn’t speak any English. [Eveningwear buyer] Judy Krull of [department store] Henri Bendel saw the collection, and she said, “thank you, but this collection is not for here. This collection is a little too cha-cha-cha. It’s not for the American market.”
At that moment, Latin fashion was not respected. The few fashion designers in the market were Carolina [Herrera] and Oscar [de la Renta]. And they were not Latin. They were more assimilated with the whole American industry. And I came here with a little cha-cha-cha, and they didn’t like it. And I was really frustrated. But at the same time, I learned so much. I walked around Manhattan for the first time, and I realized, she was right.
I went back to Venezuela, and on the plane, I sketched 17 dresses during my four-and-a-half-hour flight. I was so impacted by what she told me that I designed these 17 dresses. In Venezuela I had a big team, because I was already established. So I made those 17 sketches in three weeks. And I came back to New York.
So I went through the 17 dresses, and I think my career started in that moment, when Judy Krull called the vice president to see it. I signed a contract for three years exclusive with them. They gave me windows on Fifth Avenue, my own corner, my atelier. I learned so much about how you have to have, as a designer, the ability to understand different kinds of women and different kinds of tastes. My goal was to become international, and I did.
Who are some of the celebrities you’ve worked with?
From 2008 to 2012, celebrities started feeling their power, but they didn’t have these big deals with Chanel or Gucci or Valentino. And they had the freedom to call you if they liked your work. I had the opportunity to clothe Sandra Bullock, Eva Longoria, the Princess of Greece. There was momentum in my career. I didn’t need to call people. They called me. Sandra Bullock asked me to design her wedding dress, and then she invited me to her wedding, and I did her Oscar dress.
Do you still travel to all the fashion shows around the world?
No. My partner/husband and I lived for 18 years in New York. I got kind of tired. I didn’t want to kill myself more. … I decided to move all my family to Florida. Chris has his own independent interior design firm, and I have my firm. We decided to merge, and we founded Sanchez + Coleman Studios. But the idea was to take a break; I didn’t want to do more season collections; I just wanted to do collections when I had something new to show. This was two years before the pandemic that we established the business in Delray.
Then came the pandemic, and everything was canceled. It’s amazing how your life is determined by circumstances, but it is. I was looking for time to break from what I was doing—fashion shows, spending money on runway presentations, selling into department stores. I now do more custom-made, very special pieces, a Capsule Collection when I feel I have 12 or 16 ideas. I may go back to Fashion Week Miami. But I don’t want the pressure.
Tell me about your 2022-2023 Capsule Collection.
After all these months with no fashion, I thought, let me do a little something. It was the fastest collection I ever did. In less than a month and a half, I came up with 12 designs … related to my previous experience with private customers. I started calling every dress by the name of a client that inspired me, because I believe sometimes my clients and their needs inspire me to give them something new and fresh. One of my fears sometimes as a designer is, how do you keep your work modern? How can you still produce collections that surprise?
That started a very nice collaboration that we launched after Art Basel. I call it “Re-Edit.” I wanted to re-edit some runway ideas that I never produced, because the pieces were too modern at the time, or were not in my niche in the market. But I still believe the pieces had something to develop and explore a little further.
Have you developed a signature Angel Sanchez look? Do fashion insiders recognize right away that a dress is from your mind and your hand?
It’s not a process where I say, my signature elements are this, this and this. It’s not part of my process. But … in the end I know what I like. And through all of these 35 years of experience, I am going to make mistakes. The formula that’s behind my mind is there, but it’s not, 30 percent sexy, 30 percent architectural, 30 percent decoration. But in the end, there’s something there; my dresses have a coherent sense of style.
What I don’t like about designers is when they jump from one collection to another, and you don’t recognize them. … I like a coherent narrative. I’m a Libra; I’m very balanced.
This article is from the February 2023 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
