At a young age, David Flores had aspirations and dreams of becoming a race car driver. He was obsessed, so much so that he even drew race tracks during his free time.

“I wanted to be a race car driver when I was younger,” said Flores, Div. 984. “One day I drew a race car track for my mom and I realized, this is way cooler. Ever since then, I’ve just been drawing or painting.”

Flores has come a long way since drawing race car tracks for his mom; he now finds himself interested in fashion design as well as visual arts like drawing and painting. Flores is a student in Lane’s Fiber Fashion and Fabrics class and a member of Lane’s Fashion Club.

“It all started because I was thinking about taking this Fibers Fashion and Fabrics class, but Juan [Flores’s cousin] was taking the class and said he hated it, so I almost didn’t take it, but thankfully I did,” said Flores.

Ms. Simanis, David’s Fiber Fashion and Fabrics teacher and Fashion Club sponsor is also glad Flores took the class.  

“What I love about Flores is he communicates well,” Simanis said. “He’s not just someone that likes to work in his own bubble, he likes to communicate with me what his interest might be, ask questions. What could be done? What could be done differently? He works really well with the other students at his table.”

When asked about what Flores is like in a classroom setting, Simanis said, “Maturity comes to mind, someone who is interested and can integrate different types of thought processes into the class.”  

Flores wasn’t always sure fashion was what he wanted to do; he started as an aspiring artist in Ms Faletto’s Art 1 class.

“I didn’t realize fashion was what I wanted to do until a year ago, because I would always draw around and somehow it would always end up being a person’s face or a drawing of clothing,” he said.

From there, his hobby grew into a passion and a goal in mind.

“I want to start a business hopefully,” Flores said. “I want to start small, like getting a clothing line placed in a boutique or somethings, because there’s boutiques all over, and then from a boutique you go bigger.”

Flores’ goals are paired with a focused mindset and an eye for detail to ensure his success.

“If I’m working on my art, that’s all I care about. I just want to be working on art, I want to be happy with my art,” Flores said. “You have to be unrealistic to have a goal, and that’s how you build up, with an unrealistic mindset.”

But to others, Flores’s goal doesn’t seem too out of reach.

“I know that Kanye is a really big influence for David.” Simanis said. “I know that seeing someone from Chicago who’s been very successful with their own line is someone I can kind of see David having as a career goal. I personally believe his career goals are completely attainable, especially for someone as focused as David.”

Fortunately for Flores, he has a home within Lane to harbor all of his talents and passions.

“One day, Ms. Simanis brought up fashion club and how she wanted people to join and how she actually wanted to start more designing and clothing work,” Flores said. “I want to build my portfolio so that attracted me.”

“I went to the club and it was pretty chill. Then, we started talking about this competition at the Chicago History Museum and you had to apply, and if you got accepted you would get more information and get to compete,” Flores said. “Just the idea of applying for something like that appealed to me, so we applied, we got in, and now we wait.”

The competition Flores is referring to is FashioNext, a competition hosted by the Chicago History Museum where students get to compete to see who can craft the best garment based a prompt given to them.

Ultimately, Flores coming to Lane was a blessing in disguise. Here, he was able to discover his true passions and goals.

“I didn’t get accepted first round [to Lane]; I got accepted through Principal Discretion,” Flores said. “When I got here I didn’t know what to expect. It was completely different [from elementary school] and my art teacher I had, Ms. Faletto, was actually really inspiring.”

Flores has had a drastic change from elementary school to high school, but he feels the change in environment has been beneficial to him.

“Just being around different groups of people, good or bad. Someone can be having a racist argument or someone can be saying, ‘whoa your shoes are cool’; like all of that is inspiring to me,” Flores said.