Andrés Pestana is a Venezuelan designer, architect, multi-disciplinary creative & stylist.

Website: andrespestana.com/work

EARLY LIFE

Andrés Pestana was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1995 to multi-cultural parents of European descent. Moving to and living in the United States from ages 7 to 11, he was exposed to American pop culture at an early age, creating a deep-seated interest in various music genres including pop, hip-hop & rap, and the fashion intrinsically connected to these genres. After moving back to Venezuela, he began his involvement in design & fashion while in high-school, redesigning famous football (soccer) club uniforms and sharing them on a popular internet blog. Being part of his high-school's varsity football team, he was tasked by his class to design the uniforms for their men & women's teams during junior year.

EDUCATION

In 2013, after graduating high-school from Colegio San Ignacio in Venezuela, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia, where he began his studies in Architecture. In 2017, he graduated from a BFA in Architecture with Summa Cum Laude honors and was accepted into the Master of Architecture program at SCAD. During his Master's degree, he further developed his interest in fashion and multi-disciplinary design, choosing to demonstrate that architecture does not necessarily have to take the form of a building through his graduate thesis. He manifested this concept by utilizing typical architectural processes to develop an interactive installation as the introduction of a fashion brand to the public. During his studies, he advanced his development by taking intensive courses in Construction Project Management at Columbia University and Fashion Design at Parsons in NYC. In late 2020, he returned to SCAD on a hefty scholarship to study fashion design for over a year, before leaving the school to continue his professional career.

CAREER

During his studies, he interned in multiple fields ranging from construction and real estate development to architecture & interior design, including for a renowned real estate development company in New York City at one of the tallest and most complex towers in the city. He started his formal career in 2019 at Fogarty Finger Architects, an architecture and interior design firm in Soho, NYC as a designer. Returning to school during the pandemic to study fashion design for a short stint and leaving in early 2022, he has continued his development as a interdisciplinary creative working on design, architecture & interiors, branding, creative & art direction, and wardrobe styling for multiple artists including Grammy nominated and Latin Grammy award winning singer/songwriters Elena Rose & SpreadLof, up-and-coming producer & artist Oliver Kid, and others, while launching his own apparel brand.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

Citing Virgil Abloh & Samuel Ross as some of his primary influences, his design philosophy is evocative of his formation as a creative. He is particularly interested in cross-disciplinary work where intricate conceptual frameworks are created - in creative work whose goal is to start conversations that inspire and empower current and next generations of artists & designers, openly sharing knowledge and stimulating curiosity. His creative approach is architectural by nature and always follows a why? how? what? structure. He strongly believes that design and art should go hand in hand, not only serving to fulfill a specific function but also serving as a medium for the consumer to experience a personal transformation through interaction with the work. As a designer, he aspires for his work to serve as a trigger for analytical and critical thinking that will stimulate valuable conversation and motivate people to be involved in creative endeavors.