hottest names.

When Mandana Sharifi moved to Bermuda from Sierra Vista, Arizona, last year she left behind a promising career in the real estate business. Instead, the 25-year-old planned to build a career as a fashion designer with an eye to working in the entertainment industry.

Now, in a remarkably short time, the creative and determined Sharifi is on the brink of a dream career working with the music industry's hottest new names in New York.

At the beginning of July she headed for the Big Apple to begin work as a designer tylist for the artists' management firm Duntori & Co.

The Greenwich Village-based company was started by Queens, New York-bred sisters Desiree and Greta Dunn. Desiree started the business in 1985, operating out of her studio apartment. The sisters have already had careers in the music industry, having been back-up singers for the Fatback Band in the 1970s.

Today's singers, musicians and bands get multi-media packaging. They have to sound good, photograph well and look good on video. Duntori & Co.

specialises in artists' development, and puts together teams of make-up artists, choreographers and stylists who combine talents to design a performer's image in general or in preparation for a particular video shoot.

And if the firm's past history is anything to go by, Mandana Sharifi could find herself working with such household names as Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson and New Kids On The Block. Among the stylists who have made a name for themselves - and for Duntori - are Toyce Anderson who was responsible for creating the Billy Idol look and has worked with Diana Ross, and Tri Smith who has worked with Heavy D and The Boyz and Right On! magazine.

"This is the perfect job for me,'' says Sharifi, who once had ambitions to be a singer. "I didn't want to work for a label. The way I would like to get exposure is by designing for an artist with particular appeal among the young.'' Clearly Duntori's managers believe Sharifi has what it takes. The reference she was handed following a successful interview reads: "Mandana Sharifi is a talented up-and-coming stylist. She projects creative flair in her designs and shows great promise for the future.'' And Desiree Dunn describes her new employee as "creatively distincting and with a lot of potential''.

Sharifi puts her golden opportunity down in part to just being plain persistent, pestering Duntori & Co. until Desiree Dunn granted her an interview.

"I just kept bugging them,'' she said. "And one of the first things Desiree said was that she was impressed by my motivation. "I showed her some of the outfits I had designed and she said they were the kind of thing she was looking for for music videos.'' Once she had been signed up for the job Sharifi was told to build up her portfolio so that she would have something to show clients when she started work.

Bermuda has provided her with the opportunity to do so, and has given her the chance to show her work at a number of popular events. It was Norma Nottingham who first asked Sharifi to show some of her designs at a benefit fashion special with proceeds going to help cover the costs of a neighbour's brain operation in Boston. The Top Act Show held on April 16 at the St. Paul AME Centennial Hall was Nottingham's fifth charity show, and she was impressed by Sharifi's creativity and get-up-and-go.

Then came A Tribute To Mum, a Gina Spence Productions Mother's Day special held on May 9 at The Spinning Wheel on Court Street. Sharifi presented a collection ofevening gowns and swim wear for men and women. And at the beginning of July Sharifi was one of three featured designers in Gino Productions' Naughty (In A Nice Way), which also showcased collections by ten New York and New Jersey-based designers.

Sharifi has also found time to work in front of the camera. A successful audition for the detective TV pilot, Bermuda Grace, shot in Bermuda earlier this year, resulted in a tight schedule of six days of filming. She was given a variety of extra parts and each day created a new image for herself using her own designs or outfits she had bought and pieced together. Sharifi's cosmopolitan background has also had an influence on the clothes she designs and has kept her open to all possibilities. She is of Persian origin, but was raised in Bath, England, with older sister Mirra and younger brother Ali. Her mother, Mary, lives in Bermuda, as does Mirra, and runs the London Beauty Clinic on Parliament Street in Hamilton. Her father Manoocher lives in California.

Before becoming a realtor in Arizona, Sharifi studied art and business at Bath Technical College and was awarded an Associates Degree in business.

Although having only seriously designed for a few short months Sharifi has immersed herself completely in creating clothing for all occasions and for all people. With a keen eye for something a little different, she refuses to stick within the boundaries set by conventional fabrics.

"I have the image in mind first, and then I have to find the material. I am purely into design,'' she says.

She was recently asked to design a "futuristic'' garment for a former Miss Bermuda title holder to wear in a Caribbean regional beauty pageant. Tina Woodley went to St. Maarten with Sharifi's creation to compete for the title of Miss International on June 12.

Combining the old with the new, Sharifi took inspiration from classical Greek sculpture and came up with something verging on the avant-garde. "The guideline I was given for one of her outfits was "futuristic'' so I came up with the idea of doing a marble design - something I have not seen anywhere,'' she says. "But I wasn't able to find any suitable material, so I went to Gorhams and picked out some marble finish kitchen counter top and stuck it onto a plain piece of material. I used glue and velcro to avoid visible stitching.

"The great thing about it is that Tina can roll her outfit into a tube like a poster.'' But far from concentrating solely on pandering to a trend for the sensational and quirky, Sharifi likes to channel her creative energies into designing for every shape and size.

"I design everything from casual to formal for men and women, but I would also like to get into designing for kids, pregnant women and the fuller figure,'' she said.

"I get a lot of inspiration from old movies and try to up-date some of the designs I see there.'' And you don't have to have the perfect Linda Evangelista figure to be able to carry Sharifi's clothes off, she says.

"Sexy, but classical'' is the way she chooses to describe her designs, and intrigue is what it is all about. The key element is often a little "teaser'', she says.

This may take the form of a half-moon cut revealing a hint of cleavage in a black velvet cocktail dress, or an insert of lycra material over the navel, or a chiffon sports jacket with quilted inserts designed to conceal and reveal.

"I believe every woman can be sexy without flaunting it,'' she says. Louise Foister is a reporter with the Mid-Ocean News. She wrote about weddings in RG No.2.

DISTINCTIVE: Mandana Sharifi, pictured with her own creations.

AUGUST 1993 RG MAGAZINE