When SMU professor Liliana Hickman-Riggs walks into a packed Cox lecture hall, all eyes go to her outfit of the day. Hickman-Riggs, often called LHR by students, stands around five feet tall. She is frequently seen in a mini dress featuring velvet, lace or a collar with some sort of embellishment. Her tights tuck into platform boots that add at least four inches to her height.

Hickman-Riggs has built a reputation on campus not only for her accounting expertise but also for her unmistakable style. Her outfits are hard to miss, often including colorful platform shoes, unique silhouettes and bold embellishments. Students often notice her outfits before class even begins; something she believes changes the learning experience.

Though accounting is associated with strict rules, Hickman-Riggs believes that her style challenges that.

“You wouldn’t expect a stuffy CPA accounting woman to show up in high heels and tutu skirts, but it makes it relatable and young,” Hickman-Riggs said. “It’s a way of connecting.”

Reagan Fisch, a junior majoring in accounting, had Hickman-Riggs for ACCT 2302: Managerial Accounting.

“Before I even took LHR’s class, the first thing people would say about her was that she had the best outfits,” Fisch said. “She wore a different outfit every day, and it always made the start of class feel less intimidating.”

Compliments on Hickman-Riggs’ outfits often spark conversations with students and colleagues.

“[People] connect in many, many ways, and fashion is a good way to connect,” Hickman-Riggs said.

When students tell Hickman-Riggs they like what she’s wearing, she responds with humor and encouragement. “People say, ‘I love what you’re wearing,’ and I say, ‘Because you have great taste,’” Hickman-Riggs said. “Now you’ve replied with another compliment, and that starts a conversation that otherwise would not have begun.”

Students know who Hickman-Riggs is before ever taking her class. Milin Choski, a junior majoring in finance, has found that her reputation precedes her. “She always has the most vibrant colors on, and that, in combination with her smile and efficacious energy, sets the vibe for the class to be productive and exciting,” Choski said.

Hickman-Riggs never planned to become an accounting professor. She studied foreign languages and art history before marrying her husband and moving from London to the United States. While raising their two children, she helped her husband with administrative tasks at his CPA firm. Eventually, she decided to return to school for a master’s degree in accounting at the University of Texas at Dallas.

With no background in the subject, the transition was difficult.

“I didn’t know what a debit was, what a credit was — nothing,” Hickman-Riggs said.

Determined to succeed, she began teaching herself the fundamentals through dozens of textbooks, a process that later shaped the teaching style she is now known for in the classroom.

Instead of giving up, she pushed forward.

“I became better and better, and I swore to myself that if I ever became a CPA and finished that master’s degree, I would teach all the people who cried the way I cried,” Hickman-Riggs said.

Today, that promise defines her philosophies as a teacher.

“Believe it or not, I’m known in the world of accounting and my reputation is stellar as the miracle lady, because I teach the difficult in a very simple way,” Hickman-Riggs said. “I was the underdog one time. Not just an underdog — the underdog. I didn’t understand a single thing.”

Her ability to make accounting approachable has had a lasting impact on students.

“Her class had a huge impact on me,” Fisch said. “I actually changed my major to accounting because of her and I think that shows the kind of professor that she is.”

While accounting required persistence, fashion came naturally.

“Since the beginning of time, I’ve had a gift — a sense of fashion,” Hickman-Riggs said.

Hickman-Riggs grew up in Europe, where her parents owned two businesses: a bar and a fabric shop. Surrounded by textiles from a young age, Hickman-Riggs often spent her mornings experimenting with fabric.

“I would go in the morning, cut pieces of material that I liked, and drape my dolls, drape myself, drape everything,” Hickman-Riggs said.

That instinct to experiment with fabric still shapes the way she approaches clothing today. Hickman-Riggs often reimagines existing garments, combining fabrics, shapes and embellishments to create entirely new designs.

Many of Hickman-Riggs’ outfits are custom-made in collaboration with a couple named Young and Dino, whom she met at a tailoring shop in Plano. Though the couple has since retired, they still create pieces for her. “I take pieces from here and there and say, ‘Young, sew it here,’ or ‘Make this bigger,’ or ‘Add lace in the back,’” Hickman-Riggs said. “I merge ideas, and Young executes them.”

Her shoes follow a similar process. Because of her height, platforms are often added to styles she already likes.

“If I find shoes I like and they’re flat — and because I’m so little, I need height — Dino will put whatever platform I want on them,” Hickman-Riggs said. “I buy white shoes because they can easily be painted any color. He glues stones, attaches gems, adds pearls, ribbon — anything you can think of, he does.”

For Hickman-Riggs, the process has always been about personal creativity. She often repurposes items she has owned for decades, pairing older pieces with new ones to create something entirely different.

“I reuse, repurpose and reinvent what I have,” Hickman-Riggs said.

Despite her distinctive wardrobe, she says she has never felt pressure to tone down her style in professional settings.

“Take me or leave me,” Hickman-Riggs said. “I don’t do it to please you. I do it to please myself aesthetically.”

While Hickman-Riggs frames her style as a personal expression rather than something meant to win approval, her students view it as an extension of the same energy and care she brings into the classroom.

“She has a big personality, but also a caring heart,” said Choski. “I think that, in combination with her passion for the subject and for her students, shows that she really cares about every one of us.”

Hickman-Riggs encourages students to resist the pressure to blend in and instead embrace what makes them unique.

“Do not fit in,” Hickman-Riggs said. “Fitting in is self-betrayal.”

Hickman-Riggs believes the courage to stand out is essential to maintaining one’s identity.

“A white cow in the middle of a thousand black cows stands out immediately,” Hickman-Riggs said. “You never want to lose yourself.”