Fashion forward

Clutching a handmade book of samples of her textile design work, Charlotte Osterman nervously walked into a San Francisco Neiman Marcus in 2002 with career-altering hopes.

Fashion industry icon Diane von Furstenberg was also at the swanky department store, there to promote her new wrap dress line. Osterman was there for another reason: to ask von Furstenberg to check out her work. “I went with my best friend in case I chickened out,” says Osterman, then 26 and a graphic designer at a Silicon Valley tech firm.

The gutsy, just-show-up meeting was a success. The New York-based designer liked Osterman, and the young designer's work. Von Furstenberg invited Osterman to come back to the hotel she was staying at to chat some more. That led to an invitation to fly to New York for a job interview.