MCT

Ashley Reid and friend Jean Johnson (back) prepare models for the Charleston, S.C., Fashion Week's first Emerging Local Design Competition.

She has the ideas, the creativity and an excess of sunny, laid-back charisma.

But does Ashley Reid, 31, have what it takes to make it as a fashion designer?

Since graduating from high school in 1995, Reid has had opportunities that put her ahead of most aspiring designers, but she's still waiting for the big break.

She won a $10,000 design competition. She talked her way into becoming the first intern for a high-end New York design house.

And with her selection as one of six emerging designers picked to show at this year's Charleston, S.C., Fashion Week, she decided to launch Clewis Reid, her earthy yet sophisticated line named for her parents, Claudia and Lewis.

The business of fashion couldn't be hotter. Reality show powerhouse "Project Runway" has created a nation of armchair fashionistas. Designers, stylists and former models are landing TV shows with frightening regularity, and the eyes of the bloggers and paparazzi were recently fixed on Fashion Week in New York City.

As a designer, "it's important to put yourself out there," says Jeffrey Costello, one half of Costello Tagliapietra, the critically acclaimed fashion house where Reid interned in 2005. "It's important to find your way and find your aesthetic. Any opportunity is an amazing opportunity."

Her chances look promising, but Reid has yet to get traction.

"Starting a business is a lot harder than I thought," she says from her cottage on Sullivan's Island, S.C. "I am doing this by myself, which is good because I can call all the shots, but it would be nice to have a partner to take care of more of the business-y and number-y things, which I tend to loathe."

Unlike today's fashion-saturated pop culture that has teens on a faux first-name basis with Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors, Reid didn't live and breathe fashion in high school. Instead, she enjoyed general art classes, she says, particularly etching, painting, pen-and-ink drawing.

"I wanted (my clothing) a certain way. I was very specific," she says. "If I couldn't find it, I'd create them.

"The ideas were there. I never put two and two together," she says. "I never realized that was something I could do."

Reid loves to surf and was inspired by a trip to Hawaii. There's room for smartly designed clothing in the surf market, she says, with retail prices that start at $75.

"It's not high fashion, but it's where I want to be," she says.

The line she hopes to take to a surfing trade show in Florida in January uses three fabrics: organic cotton/silk voile, bamboo twill and organic cotton jersey. She's creating her own prints that will be digitally printed on the fabrics using low-impact ink.

"I want to feel really good about what I'm doing," she says. "I love clothes and fashion, but I don't love the idea of putting more chemicals and toxins into the world."

Her free-spirited willfulness gets stuck every once in a while.

"I've considered just giving up and getting a job," she says. "But this is where I always end back up. I just have to keep going, little by little."