Generosa Magsarili has led a storied life. The Tualatin-based fashion designer, whose designs have walked runways in Paris, Milan, London and New York, said she never expected to make fashion full-time.
Magsarili grew up in San Diego and moved to Tualatin in 1998. She was working as a realtor when someone approached her about a coat she had made for herself.
“I made myself a coat and that coat got bought off my back,” Magsarili said, laughing. “So I decided to make the pivot to starting my own brand.”
The incident inspired Magsarili to start making fashion officially, and she launched The House of Magsarili in 2023. Magsarili said the brand is “rooted in storytelling” and creates collections that revolve around linear narratives and themes.
“I didn’t realize at the onset that really what I have always been is a storyteller,” Magsarili said. “All I’ve been doing is building parts of what is now, ‘the story.’”
Shortly after establishing House of Magsarili, Magsarili met a fashion manufacturer in San Diego and began gearing up for her first fashion show, set to take place in Paris.
“I made my debut in Paris in the fall of ‘24,” Magsarili said. “I had my debut at the Westin Vendôme, like it’s one of the most iconic rooms in all of fashion.”
Magsarili attributes part of her successful career change to meeting the manufacturer who helped sponsor her first show, but she also harkened back to an inciting inspiration that came from a high-quality coat she bought while working in real estate.
“It was a catalyst for something that I didn’t know how to start myself,” Magsarili said about the coat. “It was from my first real real estate check, and it made me nauseous to spend that much money on a coat, and now I look back on it, and it changed the trajectory of my life … It felt hugely important, but I could not identify why. But having a very colorful upbringing, when I put on the coat it made me feel amazing.”
In addition to gaining a newfound appreciation for the power of styling oneself, Magsarili also said she had always sewn and wanted to work with the medium from an early age.
“There was always something in me, with the sewing, because I remember watching my grandmother sew and I just remember watching her with the machine and thinking, ‘I want to do that,” Magsarili said.
When she was offered her first fashion show in Paris, Magsarili said she was stunned but also determined to stay true to her vision.
“The definition of beauty, in my opinion, is way too narrow,” Magsarili said. “I took 18 non-professional models, ages 17 to 62, with me to Paris … Because I figured, I got one shot to do this, and I thought nothing changes unless it changes. I’m not gonna wait until I’m somebody to then change it. I’ll just change it and if they never invite me back, oh well.”
Before moving to Tualatin, Magsarili attended the University of Minnesota, studied photography, served in the Civil Air Patrol, and worked in a pediatric intensive care unit.
When she first relocated to Tualatin in 1998, Magsarili said she put on a photography show at the public library, but quickly became busy being a full-time mother and had to put photography on the back burner.
“It was too much because I had one child and I was pregnant with the second, and I’m like, this is not my season,” Magsarili said.
Magsarili has since been able to feature photography alongside her fashion, crafting photography books for her shows and curating multimedia displays that complement her designs on the runway.
“Doing runway fashion shows was never my goal, but now having been able to do that, it is such an opportunity to be able to tell stories,” Magsarili said.
While hard at work steering her brand over the waters of the fashion world for the last three years, Magsarili said she’s noticed that the daunting demands of the production process have sometimes upstaged her interest in sewing and making unique clothing.
“There are limitations, and you’ve got to be willing to let go of what it is that you want in order to produce what’s possible,” Magsarili said. “I really value the connection and I value making things that are unique, one of a kind, pieces.”
Magsarili spoke with Tualatin Life before flying to London for a Sept. 19 show she was featured in at St. Paul’s Hammersmith Cathedral. She had received relative virality on Instagram after collaborating with a local influencer and was busy preparing hundreds of hair ties she’d sold online for shipping.
Magsarili said for her next chapter, she has been looking into potentially scaling back from bulk production and operating on a level more in tune with the individual buyer.
She was part of a fashion show in Gresham last spring,, and at the end of October, she’ll host the first-ever Tualatin Local Maker’s Market. The market will take place on Oct. 24 at the Tualatin Heritage Center and will feature work from six other local Tualatin artists.
“I was always planning on being a small maker, held up in my studio, and that was always supposed to be it,” Magsarili said. “I’m coming back to that now.”
