The week she put on her first fashion show, Michelle Otero knew she had to be on her grind. When she was approached with the idea by friend Tika Jones she was down, but it only gave her one week to create eight different looks and introduce her line of leggings and jewelry, Radical Luxury, to everyone.

As her designs hit the stage, Otero, 27, her heart pounded through her chest with excitement. “It was an adreneline rush to see my own stuff,” she said.

With her first show down (and with major success), Otero has her game plan but first…

ARMOIRE CHIC: What is Radical Luxury?

MICHELLE OTERO: I don’t even know, just one day, one night, I was in my room watching The Golden Girls and the name came out of nowhere. It’s radical, and it’s luxurious.

AC: But why leggings and jewelry?

MO: People don’t think it [the leggings trend] was going to last when they came back a couple of years ago. For the most part they look good, and they’re flattering on everyone. As far as jewelry goes, I need at least one showstopper piece. With the jewelry line it’s going to get you noticed. Even if it’s one piece, you will definitely get noticed.

Otero attends the Art Institute of Boston and takes classes online to fulfill her fashion design and retail management major. She said her course load and work regime are “very disciplined,” but a lot of what she’s done is self-taught. Designing and school wasn’t always her first choice. It was something she thought about in recent years. Back in the day, school was the furthest thing from her mind.

“After high school I went to community college,” she said. “I got financial aid, and I thought I was the shit.” She didn’t take her work seriously, and she quit. Otero said she will be done with the Art Institute when she graduates next year.

AC: What made you want to start designing?

MO: I’ve always kind of done it but never did anything with it. As far as going to the extent that I am now, I had a full time job that paid well and [had] benefits, but I woke up everyday and it wasn’t for me. I always designed. I’m not the best artist, it’s not my forte, but I have ideas and I put it in my mental vault and save it for later. I’ve been making clothes ever since I was a kid. I made clothes for my dolls. It wasn’t the best, but it always served it’s purpose.

From there she made prom dresses and outfits for her friends. Otero said she can make anything out of anythng and remembers a time when she made a dress out of a hotel bed sheet by folding and knotting and twisting so much “you would have thought it was couture.”

Otero grew up in a house with three older sisters and three very different personalities, so maybe it was inevitable that she would be a designer to set herself apart from her siblings.

“I have three older sisters and my mom,” she said. “You have five personalities and five different styles.” She gets her obsession of clothes from her mother. “My mother is a clothes hoarder. [She has] shoes for days, clothes for days.”

AC: What inspires you?

MO: I’m a freak. I think clothing just shouldn’t be about clothes, it should speak to you as a person… I like to show skin. I like to show sex. I mean, not to say I’m going to show it all of the time, but my leggings are meant to be dressed with a tunic and blazer, just freak it, you know what I mean?

AC: What designers influence you?

MO: Diane von Furstenberg. She really styles for a woman. She’s iconic for her wrap dresses. Her silhouette  is for a woman. I still have my first Diane von Furstenberg dress that I paid an arm and a leg for, but when I wear it, it kind of like my power dress.

Otero came up with a pair based on an old candy cane she found in her mom’s attic. She also named her leggings after each of her friends based on their personality.

First fashion show is down, so what is next for Radical Luxury?

“If popularity increases I would like to start selling,” Otero said. Next spring, she may be able to launch her line in the Guess stores in Newberry and Cambridge, Mass.

“If it pops and sells, who knows what will happen from there? I hope for it to be extremely successful. I want my style to change and evolve. I want it to be a name you recognize and know. Pretty fades, fly is forever, man. That’s radical luxury.”