ABOUT VELA ESTRELA
Photographer | Director | Stylist | Designer
Born and raised in San Diego, California, Vela studied as a dancer from ages 2-21. While in high school from ages 15-18, Vela worked in wardrobe as an assistant and stylist in Hollywood for Costume Designer Elaine Montalvo, current Costume Designer for 'The Walking Dead'. Following Hollywood, Vela attended CSULB (California State University, Long Beach) on a ballet scholarship before being invited to tour with 'Celtic Fusion'. After going on tour professionally for dance, Vela moved to San Francisco to attend FIDM (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising). While earning a degree in Merchandise Marketing, Vela worked her way up and through the corporate office of Bare Escentuals, Inc., learning the making of the beauty and corporate industry. In 2012, Vela created Vela Bianca Swimwear, directing 13 fashion shows in San Francisco within 1.5 years.
After 9 years with Bare, in 2013 Vela left to help with the family business of Details Dancewear and expand from costumes to ready-to-wear dancewear, where she used her Marketing background to put Details on the map and on models shot by world renowned photographers. During this time, she also launched Details by Vela, a children's swimwear brand. Within months, Details and DBV were taking the dance and swim world by storm with their cutting edge designs, concepts and launches.
Directing and styling over 35 collection launches within only a few years, Vela began working as the head Details photographer both in studio and on location. In addition to being the official Details Dancewear photographer, Vela now works as a freelance photographer for dance, fashion, portrait and family shoots.
Vela has the ability to work as a director for dance, coming from a dance background, stylist for all shoots if needed coming from 2 decades of stylist experience in film, photoshoots, design and fashion for runway, print, web and media, as well as concept creation coming from a Product Development background of 9 years in the beauty industry and clothing concept to store launches. Vela works very well with children, teens and adults, apparent from years of dance industry shoots, and loves to create.
"The key element in my photography is to dream, always." -VE