Highlighting the stories of women through clothing: A spotlight on student fashion designer Anna Yang

Anna Yang (BC ’29), fashion designer and founder of the brand Stars4ever, prioritizes environmental sustainability and uses her clothing designs as a medium to advocate for women’s rights.

Photo provided by Anna Yang

By Jade Dixon

April 14, 2026

For Anna Yang (BC ’29), what started as a face mask collection evolved into a sustainable fashion brand that advocates for women’s rights. Yang’s brand, Stars4ever, was founded in Orange County, California, during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Although she founded her brand in 2020, Yang says she has been interested in fashion design since she was little. It was Yang’s mother who inspired her to start designing, who, Yang says, appreciated the arts, fashion, and wearable beauty. Yet, as she became more educated in fashion history, the fashion industry, and current world events, her business transformed from face masks to purposeful clothing pieces meant to last in a person’s closet forever. 

Yang’s first Stars4ever collection in 2022, “Fashionista,” intertwined women’s rights and empowerment with fashion. “I wanted ‘Fashionista’ to focus on addressing the stereotype that fashionistas cannot change the world,” says Yang. The collection was inspired by the early 2000s aesthetic and well-known women in pop culture from that time. “Each of the pieces was named after my favorite characters from those [early 2000s] movies,” says Yang.

Photo provided by Anna Yang

Yet, Yang realized in 2022 after her first collection that she needed to revamp Stars4ever. “I was operating under a very traditional fashion business model, and that constitutes offshore production abroad,” says Yang. Overall, Yang felt a lack of transparency within her own team regarding production and pattern-making. 

“At times I felt very far away from my own designs, which is the complete opposite of what I wanted to do with my brand,” says Yang. “I felt like a fast-fashion brand, even though I was a small business. I did feel like I was a part of the problem,” says Yang.

Before coming to Barnard, Yang attended fashion camp at Parsons School of Design, where she learned how to design clothes professionally. This camp taught her about the devastation the fashion industry causes to the environment, mirroring her worries about feeling detached from the production of her designs. 

“The process of making the clothes — how much water it uses, how much dye, the chemical process of it all, the lack of care we now put into our resources, and the increasing strain that has because of this shroud of mass consumption and globalization,” Yang noted. 

Afterward, Yang began to connect the environmental damage issues to women’s rights. “Of the devastating climate consequences, it is the women that bear the brunt of it,” says Yang. According to Amnesty International, women make up 60 to 80 percent of the global garment workforce. Through her own research, Yang learned how women are vulnerable to sickness and physical injuries as a result of unstable infrastructure and dangerous chemicals in garment factories. 

In addition to factory workers being forced to produce clothing rapidly, Yang says fashion consumers are also exploited in the process. “We are constantly exposed to microtrends and this desire to keep up with what is current. That has a toll on our own mental health and our own individuality.”  

“I had finally landed on this business model that I had never heard of, which was a social enterprise,” says Yang. According to Investopedia, a social enterprise business operates intending to address societal issues through sustainable practices. 

Yang’s second clothing collection, launched in 2025, “4ever,” marked the beginning of her business as a social enterprise. Yang explains that the name of the collection, “4ever,” redefines the “forever” aspect of her clothing, emphasizing longevity and the endless creativity of design. The collection included two different tops, designed by Yang, which can both be worn in many ways, making a singular top into a versatile piece that can serve multiple purposes in someone’s closet without having to purchase another product. “I want people who wear my clothes to feel like they’re a star, forever,” says Yang. 

Besides being a star, Yang says she wants her customers to feel like themselves when wearing her designs. “You do not have to cater to a specific trend or a specific way of carrying yourself,” says Yang. This versatility is what transfers the creativity from the designer’s hand to the customers. 

“I have had friends and customers who’ve tried it on in ways that I have never pictured,” says Yang. Specifically, one of her friends styled a long-sleeve design from the collection as a skirt — a way that she herself had not envisioned the piece to be worn. “That aligns so perfectly with the message that I am trying to convey with Stars4ever. Creativity is endless, and the industry needs to be circular. Our constant search for a better future should be infinite.”

Barnard is an important part of Stars4ever, as Yang attended Barnard’s pre-college program in 2022, the summer she launched her first clothing collection, “Fashionista.” “I have been incorporating other women’s stories in my designs for a long time, and I think it started actually with Barnard,” says Yang. 

While at Barnard pre-college, Yang took a class called “Art History of the Exploited Feminist Self,” where her professor took her to the Brooklyn Museum to see Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” (1974-1979). “It is this giant triangular installation that has a dinner plate for every influential and notable woman who contributed to the women’s liberation movement from the dawn of time,” says Yang. 

Seeing Judy Chicago’s work during her summer at Barnard inspired Yang’s overall design approach. “It was also the summer of Roe v. Wade, and I decided that fashion design from that moment on was going to be my activism tool,” says Yang. 

That same summer, Yang designed a dress which she named “Lady Combat.” The dress incorporates design elements from the first, second, and current waves of feminism. In designing “Lady Combat,” Yang wanted to pay homage to the stories of women from the past, emphasizing that the freedom women have presently is the result of the struggles past women endured. “As the women that we are today, we are still fighting for our rights, and still fighting for the women who are going to come after us,” says Yang.

Photo provided by Anna Yang

Now, as a Barnard student, Yang feels the freedom to learn more about fashion through her double major in Art History and Economics. “Barnard for me is this place that allows me to pursue — not necessarily a single major, or single career — but a purpose, and a mission,” says Yang. Yang values the opportunity to be interdisciplinary at Barnard because she believes it is important to study fashion through the lens of different fields. In Fall 2025, Yang took a class called “Environmental Sociology,” where she connected the elements of the course to her interests in fashion.“[Fashion] is so influenced by everything else going on, like economics, politics, healthcare, art, and visual culture,” says Yang.

Last fall, three of Yang’s designs were showcased in the SILK Fashion Show, Columbia University’s Asian American and Pacific Islander arts and fashion show. One of Yang’s pieces in the show, “Her Something Blue is Her Liberation,” was inspired by American author Carmen Maria Machado’s short story “Real Women Have Bodies.” 

Photo provided by Anna Yang

Yang explains that in Machado’s short story, women are sewn into the seams of dresses sold in a store where a new generation of young girls would then purchase items, literally wearing the women who came before them. Keeping consistent with the meaning of Machado’s story and environmental sustainability, Yang upcycled a vintage wedding dress and reworked it to highlight the stories of women getting married. “It was very important for me to include that personal history. Even though those stories aren’t visible, they are ultimately within those stitches that I sewed,” says Yang.

Currently, Yang is working on a new collection, “The Blueprint,” inspired by her move to New York from Orange County, California. “With that specific collection, I want to dissect the fundamentals of fashion, and I want to bring attention to the deeply structural roots of the industry and our current world issues, hence the name ‘Blueprint’ — it is the building blocks of everything,” says Yang. 

Regarding her fashion brand’s future, Yang is still experimenting with the social enterprise business model she’s adopted. So far, Stars4ever has been successfully sold in retail stores in Miami, FL, Los Angeles, CA, and San Jose, CA. What motivates Yang to keep designing and adapting to the issues within the fashion industry is simply her passion for change. “Currently, I am exploring cultural solutions to environmental and sustainable conservation and how those techniques influence traditional fabric-making that could be translated to today’s materials,” says Yang. 

As a Barnard student, Yang acknowledges the number of talented fashion designers and creatives not only at Barnard and Columbia but also all of New York City. “There are so many talented people and designers out there that it’s hard not to compare myself or compare my work,” says Yang. 

Although there are a vast number of designers in the city, Yang does not let comparison prevent her from creating. Instead, Yang says she values the community she’s built at Barnard. “The girls and the women who go to [Barnard] have been the best peers, mentors, and inspirations. The community is one of the most important aspects of why I chose Barnard,” says Yang. 

Furthermore, she compares New York to jazz music, highlighting the city’s variety in regards to people and their ideas.“Everybody is their own instrument. The more people there are, like jazz, the more instruments, the more melodies there are, the more vibrant and beautiful the music is. That's exactly what the city encapsulates: that kind of diversity and vibrancy that is just better with more people and ideas,” says Yang. 

To cope with constant pressure to produce perfect designs, Yang’s message to the Barnard community is to focus on creativity, not perfection. “You make yourself special, and instead of overthinking, doubting, and constantly comparing, just create — and make it pretty later.”