Upon her return to the states with entrepreneurship on her mind she shoveled snow for neighbors to make money, she sold knockoff perfumes, sold the Don Laprie reminder services and spent most of her earnings in fashion magazines and art supplies.   Giselle attended Paramus Catholic High School freshmen and sophomore years and graduated from Teaneck High School in New Jersey.   At that point, she realized that attending College was not in her plans.  Giselle joined the entertainment industry as an actor, booking commercials, voice-overs, print modeling and trained professionally as a belly dancer.  She attended one semester of College to please her parents and never went back.

When Giselle returned to the states she shoveled snow for neighbors, sold perfumes, sold reminder services and spent most of her earnings in fashion magazines and art supplies.   Giselle also attended Paramus Catholic High School and graduated from Teaneck High School in New Jersey.   At that point, she realized that attending College was not in her plans.  Giselle joined the entertainment industry as an actor, booking commercials, voice-overs, print modeling and trained professionally as a belly dancer.  She attended one semester of College to please her parents and never went back.

Giselle was determined to be part of the fashion industry and applied to Nordstrom’s Department store, in Paramus, N.J. where she worked in the stock room for the Women and Salon shoe departments during their Anniversary sale.   Three months later she was offered a cashier position and a year later promoted to head cashier and at times some sales.   Giselle looked up to Kerry (Salon Shoes Buyer)…“Working with Kerry was great, I always looked up to her and respected her so much for knowing shoes so well, she knew everything about every shoe, from construction to style, it was inspiring.  Almost every day, she held a meeting for the department and educated us on new brands, trends, styles and new shoes coming in.  Kerry knew I had problems finding cool shoes in my size, so after a while, she would tell me that she ordered one pair in my size, so, I would buy them.  And that is where my shoe collection started.  I love shoes!  I own hundreds of them and most of my collection came from Salon Shoes.   Kerry gave me great opportunities, she would call me to the back office to model shoes for vendors and she would have me assist designers during trunk shows.   Those opportunities were precious to me, for they allowed to meet and personally work with well-known designers such as  Massimo Ferragamo, Andrea Pfister, Donald J. Pliner, D’Rossana and Steve Madden whom I would chit chat within the stock room when he came by the store when I was working in the stock room.  I made some wonderful connections with industry leaders, but more importantly, I gained an intensive amount of knowledge about the footwear industry in less than 4 years”, Giselle said.  “Working for Nordstrom, taught me so much, it was more than a job for me, it was my school and the beginning of my training grounds.”

After Nordstrom, Giselle entertains learning about the hotel industry and works for Marriott Hotels for over 5 years.  While working at the Glenpointe Marriott, Giselle was operating a small part-time business, selling hand-painted wooden picture frames and ceramics she painted herself, as well as professionally belly dancing with a troop and going on acting/modeling auditions.  She sold many of her pieces to her hotel guests without getting caught.   Giselle says, “Working for Marriott was also an amazing experience, It took my excellent customers skills to a higher level.  I made some great friends and met so many interesting characters along the way.  My upper management team was the best ever.  I also got to travel a lot and stay in high-end Marriott hotels with my associate discount.  The greatest lessons I learned were about corporate structure and operations.  I am 100% confident that if I purchased a hotel one day, I can run it very successfully.  I learned that providing a quality product and excellent customer service was the key.” During her last few months at the Marriott, she had met another young entrepreneur.  The two began a relationship and developing a business.    Soon after that and regardless of her professional and excellent work ethics, Giselle was asked to quit her job.  At 28, she was given an ultimatum by her father and decided to move out of her parent’s house and leap into the real world of struggles.   With just a few thousand dollars in the bank to pay her bills, the young Entrepreneurs started a very lucrative Ebay business, selling commercial and residential high-end fitness equipment.  The Ebay business required plenty of traveling, knowledge and physical labor.  Giselle’s responsibilities were dealing with sellers, closing the deals, shipping and packaging any products they sold.   The business was doing extremely well, but it was not what Giselle wanted for long.  The two partners decided to reinvest their capital in a fashion company with Giselle’s fashion experience and customer service skills.

Her partner told her, that she was a great artist and had an eye for fashion and asked if she could apply her talents to designing footwear, he would apply his marketing and advertising skills to the company.    And that is exactly what they did.   Giselle applied to Ars Sutoria in Milan, Italy and got accepted, received a scholarship from the 210 Footwear Foundation.  However, she decided not to go to Milan for 3 months and instead learned the business first hand and worked for her friend Danny Lakin (Vice President and Show Chairman for B&STA) whom she also looked up to since Nordstrom.   Giselle met Danny in the stock room of the “woman shoes” department during one of his visits with the buyers, he was the representative for Moda España Shoes.   Giselle shared her intentions and goals in the footwear industry and asked Danny to teach her anything about the industry.   At that time Danny was representing Sue Wong shoes, NaNa and Kimmel shoes, Giselle worked for Danny 3 to 4 times a weeks for about 2 months as his assistant in his showroom in the Fashion District of NYC.  She modeled samples, helped with inventory and around the office. “I learned a lot by working with Danny,  he was a friend and still a mentor for me who also warned me about the difficulties of the footwear industry”.