Ági Brooks (pronounced Ahgee) was raised in Budapest, Hungary where she studied at the School of Art and Design, which enrolls just 6 new students every year. She had always planned to be an artist and has sketched and painted for as long as she can remember.

    When she was growing up, Hungary was still part of the eastern block and she laughingly credits the communists with pushing her towards designing clothes. "When I turned twelve or thirteen, like every other teenage girl on earth I was trying to find my own style. I knew one thing for sure, and it was that I did NOT want to wear the plain workers uniforms and drab clothes everyone else seemed to be dressed in. As long as I could remember, the clothes I'd really loved were the ones in the American movies from the 30's and the 40's, where everyone looked so elegant and sophisticated. So I taught myself how to sew and started haunting dress makers and small shops looking for fabrics that I liked, and making outfits for myself and my friends. We had to wear uniforms to school but the second we were out, my girlfriends and I would go back to my house and create our "Look". We all wanted to be Joan Crawford or Rita Hayworth and I've never lost my love for the type of timeless clothes they wore in that era."

     In 1972 her family was allowed to emigrate to the United States, they had been trying to get out of Hungary for over 10 years and were finally able to leave and come to New York City  where she had relatives.

     While she was still in Budapest she had decided that as much as she loved painting,  what she really wanted to do was to work in the fashion industry. She had studied some clothing design at school and immediately found a job in the garment center in New York as a junior designer for a sportswear company. "I was so excited, I was in New York City and learning so many new things with every job I was given. I would have worked for free to get all that experience. Well maybe not free but I couldn't believe I was being paid to do something I loved so much"

     She spent the next 15 years working for different companies, eventually as a head designer or in charge of a division. "I got to learn all aspects of the business, from buying fabric, patternmaking, dyeing, garment construction, and just about anything else you can think of, that goes into the making of clothes."

      I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world, working with companies in Japan, Hong Kong, China, and Korea to manufacture the clothes I'd designed. A great part of my job was to shop the stores, and go to fashion shows in Europe and all over America to keep up with changing styles, but in the back of my mind I knew I always wanted my own company, so I could make updated versions of the kind of clothes I loved so much growing up."

      "In 1987 two things happened, one I got married, and two I opened my first store in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. My husband who has a background in business has always run that part of things so I could concentrate on the creative end. I never worked so hard in my life. Luckily, the store started to make money right away, but the most difficult part of this business has always been to get the clothes made correctly. At one point we were so desperate that we moved everything out of our bedroom, hired two seamstresses, bought some industrial sewing machines and built a cutting table so I would have a place to work.

     "My husband continued to work full time so we were able to put every penny the store made back into the business, and two years later we opened the Soho Store. Business was even better in Soho than it was in the East Village, but we kept running into that same problem of getting the clothes made, We decided it was time to open a real factory, so we rented 1500 Sq.Ft. in the garment center, my husband quit his job to run the factory (gulp) , we reclaimed our bedroom, and I was freed up to design and run the stores."

     "In 1991 we closed the store in the East Village when the lease was up and opened another one on Columbus Ave. At the same time we hired a sales rep to help us start selling a wholesale line. We had always had people coming into our stores and asking about carrying my line, now that we had our factory set up we felt we could do it. The wholesale business caught us completely by surprise. It grew so quickly we ended up having to expand the factory twice in the next couple of years."

     "Today, the factory is 5000 Sq. Ft. and we still have the Soho store. We live in Manhattan, but bought a place in the country about eight years ago that we can go to on weekends. I have a studio there where I can paint and draw. I can't imagine ever not doing this, so for all you ladies out there who threatened to "find me and hunt me down" if I ever closed the store in Soho. You have nothing to worry about."