Local fashion designer marks one year anniversary with international fashion show

Had you told Danielle Salinas a year ago she’d be presenting her fashion line Maison de Papillon in Paris as part of the oldest, most prestigious lingerie fashion show in the world, she probably would not have believed you.
The 36-year-old McAllen resident celebrated the one year anniversary of her company on Nov. 26. The product of her hard work has resulted to her design line being featured in Salon International de la Lingerie in Paris, France, Jan. 26 through Jan. 28.
“This is our first international show,” Salinas said. “This is the oldest marketplace for lingerie in the world. This is when the major buyers of the world and celebrities come out and see the new trends. It’s kind of like a market show.”
A native of Weslaco, Salinas first launched Maison de Papillon a year ago after deciding to design a comfortable and versatile line of sleepwear and sleeping eye masks she calls “sleep shades.”

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“A few years back I had an epiphany of starting a sleepwear company. I wanted to design sleep shades and incredible pajamas because I was just so disappointed in the options,” Salinas said. “I literally woke up one morning and told my husband ‘I’m designing sleep shades because we need sleep shades and nobody has good sleep shades.’ He was like, ‘Ok, you do that.’”
After working on design prototypes and conducting research, Salinas was determined to set her dream into motion by attending Parsons The New School for Design in New York City.
“I told my husband I wanted to apply to Parsons and I’m going to have to move to New York to go to school,” she said. “I just decided this is what I wanted to do. My husband supported it.”
Two years later, Salinas completed her fashion program at Parsons. She had started working on her Maison de Papillon line while still enrolled in classes.
“We have had some incredible success in one year. We’ve been featured in Vogue, OK Magazine … it’s been incredible.” Salinas said.
What makes Maison de Papillon so unique is the versatility and concepts of the garments, Salinas said.
“The concept of the garment is like a hybrid garment. We work predominantly with silk, so we design a lot of silk blouses and silk drawstring pants, but the whole idea is that it’s very transitional,” she said. “You can wear it to travel and you can wear it, obviously, to sleep but you can also throw on a pencil skirt and wear it out to the office. So that’s what our buyers have been really excited about.”
The concept of the line has spurred attention from major markets such as Sea Island beach resorts, Baha Mar hotels in the Bahamas, the Beverly Wilshire, Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills and even Trump International Hotels.
“I actually got emails from Trump International Hotel which basically said they are using Maison de Papillon as a platform to legitimize their luxury spa,” Salinas said. “I mean, when you get an email like that from Trump Hotel — as a designer that’s only been in business for one year — that is pretty amazing.”
Maison de Papillon spearheaded when New York Fashion Week included the brand in their “Top 10 designers to watch out for” list. They were handpicked out of 480 designers from all around the world.
“We are so excited and it’s been a lot of hard work,” Salinas said. “And I’m a little girl from Texas, you know, not only Texas but from McAllen. Now we have big names like Harris, Harvey Nichols of London, Neiman Marcus, SAKS, Barneys — people just reaching out and basically saying ‘Look, this line Maison de Papillon is one you don’t want to miss.’”
With the growing success of the line, Salinas took on a partner this year, Shriya Bisht, whom she met while attending design school.
“We met at Parsons our first semester and became really good friends,” Salinas said. “We had similar visions in what we wanted to do and a very similar aesthetic, so it was just a perfect partnership.”
Now co-owner of the company, Salinas has been able to embark on a new project under the Maison de Papillon umbrella — a recently launched brand of teas.
“We just got featured in Vogue for our teas, which are sold exclusively on our website,” Salinas said. “It’s basically our version of a beautiful chamomile tea with peppermint. We are in collaboration with a tea salon and this tea is just incredible. So that is one of our big projects right now and we just launched it for holiday ’14.”
The tea, called Le Reve Chamomile Thé, is meant to go hand-in-hand with the overall message of the design line: comfort. La Reve is a soothing blend of chamomile, peppermint, rose and marigold petals, peppercorns and licorice.
“When I was a little girl, my parents gave me manzanilla (chamomile) tea whenever I had a cold,” Salians said. “For me, chamomile is such a huge part of my heritage. This particular blend for me really took me back home.”
Constantly traveling between New York and McAllen, Salinas attributes much of her ambition to her family, especially her 17-year-old son.
“… When you’re a parent, you just can’t fail. You have to prove to them that anything is possible through hard work.” Salinas said.
Salinas lives predominately in New York City to be close to her business but has never lost touch with her heritage and culture.
“It all started here with my roots. I’m really proud of where I’m from, I’m really proud of my heritage and I’m so proud of South Texas,” she said. “I think we have some of the best culture here and I’ve been all around the world. There’s still nothing like coming home.”
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