San Joaquin's Fearless Fashion Leader

Leslie Asfour

If someone had told Leslie Asfour years ago that she would one day be the rock of San Joaquin Delta College's fashion department, she wouldn't have believed you. "I thought, Okay, I'll do this for five years," she says. "You keep rolling in this career, and before you know it, you're fifteen, twenty years in." When Asfour began teaching part-time at Delta College in 1992, the bare-bones fashion department had only twenty students and a handful of classes.

"There was nobody that owned the program. No one had a master plan for it," Asfour says. Today, classes are packed with anywhere from forty to eighty students, and a wide-range of courses are offered. Students can also join the Fashion Club, which fundraises to pay for field trips to industry centers. Asfour is the only fulltime instructor, and nine part-time faculty members comprise the remainder of the department. She received the Distinguished Faculty of the Year award in May 2011.

With the help of mentor Dr. Hazel Hill, Asfour evolved the program into its present incarnation. For fourteen years, Asfour has been taking groups of students to New York for an up-close look at one of the undisputed hearts of the fashion industry. There, students have met and rubbed elbows with designers such as Betsey Johnson, Kate Spade, Tommy Hilfiger, and Kenneth Cole. In 2008, she took students to Paris and London, where they were able to spend time with Stockton native turned London lingerie designer, Amy Griffith. Students have also gone on field trips to Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Asfour brings to her teaching career a vast resume of real-world industry experience. When she was 28, she opened her own clothing store in Lincoln Center called ZAZZ, located in what is now the dairy section of Podesto's. She operated her store successfully for two-and-a-half years before closing. "I don't regret the closing because I don't think I'd be at Delta If I still had the business," she says. "My hard work is not going to put money in the pocket of someone sitting behind a desk. It will ensure the future success of the students I teach, and it's a big difference why I get up to go to work every morning," she says. In addition to her teaching position, Asfour also works as a consultant for local independent businesses and large chain stores, something she has done for twenty years. Her areas of consulting expertise include marketing, branding, social media, and visual presentation and store design. Like her strong work ethic, Asfour's creative streak also runs in her family. Her cousin Gabriel Asfour is the creator of the successful fashion line ThreeASFOUR. She has a cousin who is a writer for The New Yorker and TimeOut, and another cousin who is a handbag designer. "I love hanging out with them and hearing what they're doing. They're fun people and successful because they built their careers," she says.

Asfour is dedicated to helping her students fulfill their dreams in the fashion industry. In fact, one of the misconceptions she'd like to clear up is that there are no jobs in the field. "It's the fourth largest industry in the U.S. and the second largest in California," she says, adding that it is possible to have a financially successful career. In fact, several Central Valley natives have found success that has taken them beyond their humble beginnings. One of her former students graduated from Delta College and is now a fashion instructor in Milan, Italy, while others have successful careers in New York and San Francisco. "There are a lot of interesting people who are from this area—or who have come to this area and have made it our home—doing amazing things," she says.