Last Friday, CFDA kicked off a new series in collaboration with the National Arts Club centering arts and fashion, with CFDA member Cynthia Rowley as the program’s first designer in conversation with CFDA Editorial and Communications Director Marc Karimzadeh.

In a word, the Cynthia Rowley brand is joyful. A combination of adventure, arts, sport, and prettiness. Her life’s trajectory and career has been exactly that, too.

The designer hails from a small town in Illinois, born to a family of artists. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago where, as a graduating senior, she won a fellowship award with $2,000 that she used to rent a U-Haul and move to her first New York City apartment on Varick Street, wasting no time to start her line and host runway shows.

Today, Rowley is the author of five best-selling books, has appeared on many TV shows, is a CFDA Fashion Award winner, and dear friend of the American fashion community.

Marc Karimzadeh: How has storytelling played a role in your process, from the design process to runway shows?

Cynthia Rowley: There’s a lot of ways to story tell—most importantly in the product itself—but also in presentations and collaborations. We figured out that we have had 100 runway shows to date which is kind of amazing. I think that’s a great way to tell a story, but it’s not the only way.

With a runway show, people will always ask, what’s your inspiration? I hate that question. You can’t just say it’s one thing. That mentality took me down the wrong path for the long time and down the rabbit hole of a thematic show. You can get carried away with that and the clothes start to become not as wearable or relatable.

It should be up to the audience whether they like it or not. What is their interpretation and how are they seeing it? Fashion for me is fantasy, vision, and dreams.

It makes so much sense to be here [at the National Arts Club] because [CFDA Founder] Eleanor Lambert looked at fashion as art. You’re the perfect person to kick off our series because you have an association with the art world. How much does art mean to you

There is a difference between art and commerce in fashion and I prefer to separate them.

I had this idea inspired by artists like Richard Prince on the appropriation of other mediums for my collaboration with Gagosian Gallery. In fashion, you go from 2-D sketches to 3-D clothes and back to 2-D photographers of the collection, so I was fascinated by that. We made blanks and printed the collection on them from appropriated images from the runway show with a Gagosian clothing label and sold them in the gallery.

My very good friend Will Cotton, who is a great artist, once approached me with a concept of a cupcake paper dress for Katy Perry and said he knew I could make it. We also did this show together where he created the set and Scarlett Johansson opened the show singing The Candy Man. After the show, he painted a beautiful painting of the show set with the models.

The Cynthia Rowley brand is so rooted in activewear, fitness and sport. How does that speak to your brand?

I am obsessed with fitness and sport. I love surf, and there was nothing cute for girls, so we started making wetsuits and have now been making them for 12 years. We even do a surf camp once a year. We don’t dress professional athletes, even though they are fully functional. We make it for women to get out there to try something new and take a chance on things. Vogue called our stuff surf-leisure, but you can wear it wherever and however you want.

I think sports are in every part of life, including fashion. If you think about it, in fashion, you must persevere, you have to be dedicated, you have to work hard, you have to work as a team, you have to be tough-minded, and you are competitor. If you think you’re broken, get up and go fight another day. Sports is an important mentality to have. I’m so lucky to have my team and we work well together. When we design something cute, we say ‘Scotty Pippen sets it up, and Jordan dunks it!’

What advice would you give to a young professional looking to have a career in fashion?

Be grateful. It’s very hard work and it doesn’t get easier; it just becomes different hard work. Be fiscally responsible. I never took in outside capital in the beginning because I didn’t want anyone to have the chance to pull the plug on my dreams. I think that balance of art and commerce, understanding the business, and being as creative in business as you are in design is just as important.

Every day I’m excited to come to work and say hey this fashion thing is starting to work. When I came to New York I had nothing to lose, so I would take risks and do crazy things. Now you should never lose that feeling of having nothing to lose, and you should always embrace trying new things and taking risks.