Warm light floods into the hallway as a chair props open a door.

Inside the room, colorful fabrics and vibrant fashion sketches adorn the walls.

A poster proclaims the model casting call for “Reflections,” the theme for this year’s annual fashion show at El Camino College.

In the Fashion 44 class, professor Vera Ashley quizzes her students on a checklist of fashion show preparations.

Decorations? Check. Models? Check. Rehearsal? Check.

The class assembles into four groups, forming the show’s staging, merchandising, promotion and model committees.

Checking in with each committee, Ashley weaves through the classroom in a classic black suit. A carnelian-red shirt brings glimpses of color to the collar and cuffs of her blazer.

“The camaraderie, the working together with the students, all that to me is very charging,” Ashley said.

Ashley, who has worked at El Camino for over 16 years, is a full-time fashion professor, fashion department coordinator and club adviser.

When Ashley was around seven years old, she had a classic Barbie doll.

“My mom told me, ‘Those [Barbie] clothes cost as much as your clothes, so I’m going to get you a sewing machine,’” she said.

With the help of her first machine, a small hand-cranked Singer, her dolls were soon wearing tailor-made designs.

Upon acing her first sewing class at Horace Mann Junior High, her parents got her a real sewing machine, which she used to create one of her first projects: a skirt.

Later, at Crenshaw High School, she continued excelling in sewing classes. After graduating, Ashley went to Pepperdine University, double majoring in family consumer sciences and early childhood education.

“I always wanted to be a teacher,” Ashley said. “My original goal was to be a preschool teacher.”

Ashley graduated from Pepperdine in 1976 and then briefly worked at Bullock’s, a high-end retail chain. It didn’t work out, she said, and the chain eventually closed in the ‘90s.

She then found a job listing that said, “spec sheet writer must know how to sew.”

“Well, I didn’t know what a spec sheet writer was, but I did know how to sew,” Ashley said.

When she went in for the interview, Ashley said they had patterns hanging on cardboard.

“And I go ‘what’s that,’ you know, I had not seen that before,” she said. “So, in my curiosity, I went back to school.”

Already having a bachelor’s degree, Ashley enrolled in fashion courses at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.

While taking classes there, a position opened at a company called Tomboy Domino, where she eventually transferred from working as a spec sheet writer to a designer’s assistant.

“[The designer] had me coming in on Saturday, working in another department making patterns, and so I just loved it,” Ashley said. “I just continued moving up in the industry. I was a designer, I was a spec sheet writer, I was a trim supervisor, I was a pattern maker.”

After about 10 years of working in the industry and at several other companies, an opportunity arose to become an instructor at Otis College of Art and Design.

“My first teaching job was at Otis. I loved it. I love working with the students, I love seeing the light go on, I love them admiring what they had created,” Ashley said. “And so I knew that’s what I wanted to do. That’s the reason I transitioned and went back to school to get my master’s degree, so I could teach full-time.”

Ashley received her master’s in family consumer sciences and fashion design from Cal State Long Beach in 1998. At the time, she was also working at Cal Poly Pomona.

“I was working in the industry four days a week and teaching one day a week. That’s how my teaching started,” Ashley said.

Ashley has also taught at several other colleges and universities, including Brooks College, Pasadena City College, American Intercontinental University, Woodbury University and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM).

Continuing her teaching career, Ashley obtained her doctorate of education in a joint doctoral program from UC San Diego and San Diego State University in 2010.

“I was working at El Camino part-time in those early years and then the position came open full-time and so I was able to get that, and that was 16 years ago,” Ashley said. “Bringing this joy to the students, or that love of learning, love of discovery, to the students, I like being a part of that.”

In El Camino’s Fashion Department, Ashley is the only full-time professor.

“She’s a good leader for her group. She manages a group of part-time faculty that support our program also,” Dean of Industry and Technology David Gonzales said.

As Fashion Department coordinator, Ashley completes administrative work including research, budgeting, hiring instructors and conducting program reviews.

“Her leadership is critical,” Gonzales said. “Because a lot of the things that she does in the division, in her department, wouldn’t happen without her and her passion for the profession.”

Ashley is also the adviser of the Tailor-Made Fashion Club. Both the club and the El Camino College Fashion Department present the fashion show every year.

El Camino’s fashion show, which started in 1982, is entirely planned by students from the Fashion Show Production and Planning (Fashion 44) class.

“Every [Fashion 44] class has a whole different culture. The students are different, they have different ideas, it’s a different time, and so I incorporate all of that in each class,” Ashley said. “I tell them it’s their show.”

Gonzales, who became the division’s dean in 2018 and has a background in business and engineering, was introduced to fashion when he attended his first fashion show at El Camino.

“Once I saw [the show], I go, ‘Wow, these students are really talented,’” he said. “I was really surprised by how talented they are, and the different designs and things, and the things that they think about when they come up with the designs.”

Clara Villa, 26, is a fashion design and business administration major enrolled in Fashion 44 this semester.

“It’s chaotic and stressful but it’s fun and I look forward to seeing the outcome,” Villa said. “I learned a lot from her classes, honestly, about textiles and using the machines…I didn’t know how to use an industrial machine [before].”

Fashion design major Amber Davis, 21, has taken two classes with Ashley, and said Fashion 44 is her favorite class.

“She’s a very great professor. If you have any questions about getting in the [fashion] industry, she’s the person you can go to,” Davis said.

During her time at El Camino, Ashley has also published research, including an article on leather alternatives in the Journal of Textile Science and Fashion Technology. As part of her research, she conducted surveys and involved student opinions.

Her other research interests include thrifting and metal-free jewelry.

“I just like creating. I’m very technical and I like creating something out of nothing,” Ashley said.

Among all the processes in fashion design, patternmaking is not only one area of her expertise, but her favorite.

“Fashion is a huge means of expression,” Ashley said. “To have the creativity that you want is really cool, and again, you can walk into a fashion classroom and see students in all aspects of that, because it starts when you’re little.”