Pacing the hallways of Umphrey Lee’s journalism wing, then sophomore Nikola Ducic is on hold with DHL shipping, waiting to hear news – hopefully good – about the arrival of his designs. Ducic is beginning his fashion brand under the same name, but with clothes held up in customs, he’s worried he made a mistake flying in models for a shoot.
A fashion media student, Ducic’s world revolves around silhouettes, patterns, lighting and textures. Watching him now, he sits in his low-rise dark denim, white tank top and spiky bleached hair. It’s hard to imagine him wearing business professional, roaming the halls of SMU’s Cox School of Business. There was a time, though, where that was his trajectory.
“I sometimes want to slap my younger self because I was actually going to do accounting or finance,” Ducic, now in his junior year, said. “If you can believe it.”
Wrapping up high school, Ducic began looking to the future and applying to schools. Ducic grew up in a split, immigrant household; his mom and Yugoslavian dad separated when he was young. For him, art school was never an option. It was business or bust.
From his home in North Texas, Ducic applied to prominent business schools in the area. SMU wound up being the best school he got the big envelope from. The summer before arriving on campus, Ducic faced a predicament: it was time to declare an interest.
“I was scrolling to find finance and I saw fashion media,” Ducic said. “I had no will to do anything, so I literally Googled ‘What is fashion media?’ and I was like ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ I selected fashion media, I clicked submit and I stuck with it. Literally, that was the moment. Isn’t that weird?”
Weird or not, it seems to have worked out well for Ducic. Throughout his time on campus, he has racked up an impressive number of accolades: interning 30-something hours a week, then working as the executive assistant to a celebrity stylist Antoine Kelly; assisting in the styling of a Vogue Mexico cover with Sabrina Harrison; and owning his own luxury womenswear brand, DUCIC.
These experiences have led him across the globe: from his hometown of Colleyville, Texas, to the front row of the Louis Vuitton show at Paris Fashion Week. He may not have known his connection to fashion back in Colleyville, but Ducic always knew he was different. While his peers turned to rappers and athletes for inspiration, he looked to the runway at designers and the supermodels wearing their creations.
Fashion, as he would learn, is a beast of a business itself. Maybe art school wasn’t such a bad option after all. That instinctual draw to fashion grew into something stronger once he learned it was possible to have a career in the industry.
One former classmate, Camila Trevino, recognized his natural talent and dedication to the industry in their shared night class taught by Ethan Lascity. There, she saw how his brain clicked with the material.
“I feel like as fashion media students, we appreciate and we love fashion, but he lives fashion,” Trevino said. “He definitely takes fashion to the next step. Not even with what he’s wearing, but just appreciating the industry, especially an industry that’s so hard to break into.”
By using his connections through Kelly, SMU professors and other opportunities, Ducic is “going tooth and nail” to make that break happen for himself, Trevino said.
In the process of making his own brand, despite setbacks, he’s been able to touch and feel clothes he designed, sustainably made in Italy and sold in the U.S. Leading up to his December launch, Ducic worried the end product wouldn’t happen.
Shipping and tariff negotiations forced some turbulence. The uncertainty led to two pricing options: pay $69,000 for two to three days of shipping, or wait a month.
“I closed my laptop and I was like, ‘I’ll give it a month,’” Ducic said.
A month later, with pricing settled down, he placed his order, but issues at U.S. customs delayed his initial shipment of items necessary for his photoshoot. Everything was already paid for: flying models in, booking the shoot space, photographers, etc. Waiting three months while his clothes sat in customs wasn’t an option. Somehow, he got through to one woman.
“Celeste. I will never forget her name,” Ducic said. “Celeste from the Cincinnati hub of DHL is the only woman who ever helped me.”
With Celeste’s help, Ducic got the materials, shot his photos and achieved his goal of dropping his collection before Christmas – just six days before.
“That wasn’t great,” Ducic said.
Another woman who indirectly helped him was a friend, senior Elizabeth Wheless, who owns her own luxury “story-inspired sleepwear” brand, SOZO Sleep. The two have collaborated on many personal and professional projects and have developed a special bond through their shared experience of brand ownership.
“We always call each other, and we’re like, ‘You’ll never believe it. Blah, blah, blah sample’ and ‘Blah, blah, blah factory,’ so we get it,” Wheless said. “It’s fun to have somebody so you’re not completely alone.”
Through the ups and downs, and with his keen eye and determination, Ducic has made a name for himself in the SMU fashion media department. One that, one day, might be known on every hilltop.
“He has one of the best eyes for detail that I’ve ever seen,” Wheless said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see his looks on a fashion week runway, soon.”
Time will tell if and when DUCIC hits New York Fashion Week, but Nikola will be prepared. Throughout his time on campus, his work and class opportunities have combined to offer a unique, meaningful experience.
One of his professors, Jenny Davis, assisted him not only in the classroom but professionally, too. Ducic said he was hired as a stylist for a Dallas designer and, only after, learned it was Davis who recommended him for the gig.
“Nikola has a highly developed aesthetic sense, plus he’s a hard worker and a kind and supportive person,” Davis said. “He’s exactly who you want to have on set.”
It was only his second or third week in the role, but from then on, he was conscious of how much he was learning. As he sat in a styling class and listened to a special VIP client for Thom Browne speak, he had a realization that his job is “valuable.”
“He’s like ‘Yes, like I blah blah blah,’ and it took him months, and he was talking to Marisa from Thom Browne,” Ducic said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God. I texted Marissa this morning. This is crazy.’”
Working on a Vogue cover on March 27, 2025 takes the cake now. “That was the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. It’s framed in my living room,” Ducic said.
Knowing he was talking to Marisa as an undergraduate student was groundbreaking at the time.
More groundbreaking things will surely come for Ducic; one may even be in an area undiscovered. For now, though, Ducic continues to work on his brand and styling jobs but has eyes set on what’s yet to come.
“Even with my brand, I love it, and yeah, I guess people are like impressed, but I don’t just want to do that. I want to do a bunch of things,” Ducic said.
