Astrid Sohan

Fashion Enthusiast
Astrid Sohan could not sit still for college. Five times she enrolled and five times she dropped out. She wanted to get going on life, not listen to professors. She went to work, learned computer operating at I.B.M. and Johnson & Johnson and was hired to manage the technical support department at Marsh & McLennan. Her salary there let her do what she loved most: shop. "Expensive clothes," said Clive Sohan, her father. "Ann Taylor. Talbots. Shoes — she had too many."

Astrid, 33, learned about tailoring and natural fabrics from Barbara Sohan, her mother, a dressmaker in Hazlet, N.J. She liked simple leather pumps and classic tailored suits of cotton, silk or wool. She especially loved the jewelry — like a diamond- chip monkey pendant and a pair of black pearl earrings — that her mother had brought back from China and Hong Kong.

The other passion she shared with her mother was travel in hot countries. And even in beach towns, her clothes had flair. "She asked me to make a blouse that's unfinished," Mrs. Sohan said. "Purple. Cotton pique, with short sleeves. Just a little summer shirt to wear with jeans."