West LA fourth grader becomes youngest-ever fashion designer to debut at Paris Fashion Week

At just 10-years-old, Max Alexander has already accomplished plenty in the fashion industry. With his own design label, employees, millions of social media followers and a collection of clothing focused on sustainability, he’s now adding one more accolade to his long list of successes by becoming the youngest-ever designer to have a show at Paris Fashion Week. 

“Just a big deal. Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger deal than a big deal,” Alexander said while speaking with CBS LA. “Because Paris is the home of fashion!”

Alexander is also a big deal, already taking the world by storm in 2023 as the Guinness World Record holder for the youngest runway fashion designer. With Paris Fashion Week kicking off on Wednesday, March 4, he’s now also the youngest-ever designer to have his own show on fashion’s biggest stage. 

CBS LA caught up with Alexander as he packed his newest collection for his Fashion Week debut, a stark contrast from the normal life of a fourth grader living in West Los Angeles. 

While full of childhood whimsy and a playful personality, Alexander is all business when it comes to fashion. 

“My collection consists of 15 dress and they’re all, well, 90% of my show is biodegradable, recyclable, sustainable, made from dead stock and surplus,” Alexander explained. “Dead stock is leftover material not used by companies. … It would have been in the landfill unless I rescued it.”

His newest bag design sold out in just 24 hours, as did the set of charms he recently released. He says that through all of his designs, he focuses on saving environmental sustainability while ensuring that creativity seeps from every seam. 

“I’m trying to save the environment, in very complicated words,” he said. 

When CBS LA first met Alexander in 2023, he was just 7-years-old and preparing for his first fashion show after taking social media by storm. When his mother started up an Instagram account for his designs, he gained more than a million followers. Now, he has nearly six million people who closely follow his design label. 

At the time, he said that he began sewing several years earlier after he had a dream that he was a dress designer. In a different dream, he was renowned fashion icon Paolo Gucci. When his mom was able to create a mannequin for him to begin designing, it ignited an undeniable passion that is now a worldwide phenomenon.

Alexander shared a brief snippet of his Paris Fashion Week journey on Instagram, spotlighting the incredible accomplishment while making sure to note that a show like this is only possible with a world of support, for which he is “forever grateful.”