Sylvia Heisel was born on June 22, 1963 in Princeton, New Jersey. She spent her early childhood years in Nairobi, Kenya before returning to Princeton. She attended boarding school in Connecticut and studied art history at Barnard College for a little over a year before dropping out to pursue a lifelong dream of a career in fashion. Without any formal training, Sylvia's first designs were soon carried at some of New York's most exclusive stores including Henri Bendel and Barney's. She presented her first full collection on the runway in 1988. After years of gradual development and expansion, the collection is currently carried in over 100 specialty stores across the United States.

"I think fashion is about who you are right now. What you're wearing says who you are at that moment in time. It's the first thing you communicate to another person. My favorite clothes are similar to my favorite personality traits: ease, beauty, luxury, grace, style, confidence and a little bit of attitude. What we wear is a combination of reality and what is in our minds. The reality is where we have to go and what we have to do. The dream is what we want to be, what's beautiful and exciting to us, and what we desire. I try to design clothes with a combination of these qualities: wearability in the real world with an aesthetic of dreams."

"My inspiration comes from everything in the world, more often from the zeitgeist than from other pieces of clothing or designed items. Historically, fashion is interesting because of what it says about any particular moment in history. What looks good, new and exciting one day looks old and tired the next."

Exquisite fabrics, rich colors, and couture quality are the cornerstones of the Sylvia Heisel collection where everything is clean, modern, and thoroughly luxurious. Yet, the collection is not only about structure and color but rather about creating clothes that are practical, timeless, and wearable.