Last time we saw Jocelyn Hazen she was on pins and needles, pulling all-nighters with fellow design students to prepare for the senior critique in the fashion design program at the University of Cincinnati.

        Students in the Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) program devoted their senior year to turning fashion sketches into runway reality, creating a clothing line representing their take on the fashion world.

Jocelyn Hazen

        Ms. Hazen snipped, pinned and stitched together four contemporary translations of the ball gowns of the 1880s. Her designs had corseted waists and full skirts. But similarities ended there.

        She worked with snake-patterned leather, fur, vinyl and metal and passed up pastels of the past to work with black and red. Her dresses had fan-like “collars” that flipped up to frame the head, and one had a metal hooped skirt covered with sheer black lace. Not for the faint-hearted woman.

        “Dominatrix-inspired” is how she described them.

        The first thing Ms. Hazen wanted to do upon graduation was sleep.

        And, after the DAAP graduation (she skipped the all-university ceremony),that's exactly what she did, devoting her summer to R&R and thinking about the future..

        “We were all so out of sync getting our projects done at the end of the year we didn't have time to think of anything else,” she says.

        “I see a lot of them (fellow graduates) all the time. Most are taking the summer off to unwind, get situated and put portfolios together. Only two people I know have started working at design jobs right away.”

        Ms. Hazen, living in Clifton, has been working part-time at a retail job and planning her move to New York and Seventh Avenue, where she always has planned to work.

        “At first, I only wanted a design job, but no, I'm open to different kinds of work, for example working at a magazine as a stylist. I'm not as restrictive.”

        But living in the Big Apple is a must.

        “I'm going to move to New York at the end of September, regardless of the job situation. A lot of times it's easier to get a job once you are there.”

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