If you haven’t heard of up and coming fashion designer Melissa Soto, you soon will. The talented Buenos Aires, Argentina native currently designs for Ring of Fire, a menswear apparel company selling to huge, established retailers such as Macys, Walmart, TJ Maxx, Ross, and many more. Ring of Fire also owns a contemporary high end menswear brand called Departed where she focuses on designing exquisite leather pieces. In addition to all that, Soto is doing freelance designing for Buemia, a hip, Miami-based, start up shoe company.
Even though she is still in her youth, Soto is a seasoned and talented fashion designer with extensive knowledge of the fashion industry on an international scale. Ever the world influencer, she finished her bachelor’s degree from the University of Buenos Aires, the largest and most prominent design school in Latin America. While still in college, she was designing forJazmin Chebar and Zapatos De María, two of the most prominent brands in her native country. Soto has always focused on shoes, handbags and accessories design, though she is currently designing menswear for the Departed. Two years ago, she moved to Los Angeles to focus on expanding on her thriving design career. She recently finished a Certificate program at UCLA Extension focused in Marketing with concentration in Social Media and Web Analytics which provides a strong marketing perspective to her vast creativity.
Well known celebs such as Barbara Palvin and Jennifer Pugh have worn her whimsical designs in addition to Argentinian celebrities such as Juliana Awada (Argentine First Lady), supermodel Astrid Munoz, actress Dolores Fonzi, model Romina Lanaro, Agustina Cordova, and Daniela Botero (model and blogger). Soto was awarded with a Cambridge Career Award in Graphic Design, which is a really sought after award in her industry.
Her bright and bold designs have appeared in several high end magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Harpers Bazaar Argentina, Hola! Mag and other renowned Argentine magazines. She has also created beautiful illustrations for the popular LA-based Galore mag.
As for her future plans, Soto had this to say,” Eventually I would like to have my own brand, dedicated to shoes, handbags and leather goods. I would also like to have stores located in cities that are big fashion hubs here in the US like New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, LA and other cities. Since I have a strong interest in outdoors and travel, I think the direction of the brand would be very active and nature driven. It would be highly influenced by art, photography and music, more like creating very unique art pieces.”
The future looks really bold and bright for Soto much like her vivid designs. More info about Soto at on her instagram page, which is https://www.instagram.com/_melisoto/
