After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2000, Anna McCraney, otherwise known as ANNABELLE, took her talents to New York City with grand plans to conquer fashion elitism. A native of Atlanta, Georgia and only two generations away from a dirt farm in Alabama, she has consistently disregarded the fashion industry standard, thumbing her nose at an industry that says money means power and thin means beautiful.

She has collaborated on designs for her clothing and invitations with artists such as Andrew Kuo, Jeremy Wagner, Brian Chippendale, Glen Baldridge, Jessica Smarsch and Travis Connor. By participating in art shows at Space 1026 in Philadelphia, being featured in the Big Red Machine's Pattern Book and showcasing her work at the 2003 International Contemporary Furniture Fair as part of the Apartment's Democratization of Design showcase, she has been able to shape shift: moving in and out of various art scenes with ease to reach a larger audience. She designed the staff uniforms for Peep Restaurant on Prince Street in Soho and has dressed everyone from Rachel Bilson, Shannen Doherty, and a few of the hot MTV VJ's.

With a history of brazen, D-I-Y runway shows in such venues as LOT 61, Spa, Galapagos, North Sixth and Providence's now-defunct punk rock co-op, Fort Thunder, she has emerged as one of the most intriguing and innovative young New York designers. Combining fashion, theatre and music, her avant garde productions have been inspired by everything from girl gangs to bar fights to Grimm's fairy tales to the evolution of the female archetype. Annabelle stretched her versatility with her spring/ summer 2006 collection by incorporating a little sparkle and shine using sequins, pailettes and lurex yarns. Stepping a bit out of her box, Annabelle experiments with cotton lace and tiers for a more lady-like silhouette.

Armed with a grassroots approach to marketing and a fine arts sensibility towards design and production, Annabelle gives her customer exquisite knitwear with hard lined, original woven designs. Because she refuses to fall prey to fashion trends and is bored to tears with what's hot and what's not, her line has its own style that is malleable to the buyers' own; each article has a hand knit aesthetic and its own unique idiosyncrasies. Annabelle possesses the empathy for the average woman that most designers only pretend to have. She is the girl counting out change to buy lunch, having a beer at the bar, reading a book on the train, laughing with her friends at a party, riding her bike to work and riding it back home to Brooklyn. She is that girl you know or that you think you know... or you might as well know because she knows you. She is like you. She is you. She knows the secret that we all know... that life is for the living.

Home • Current Collection • Past Collections • Press • Shows & Events • Links