Fashion Designer: Rebekka Lien

Born in Hamburg, Germany, Rebekka Lien could have been anybody, but she decided to become somebody. Early on, her mother nurtured and allowed for Rebekka’s creative talents to flourish and grow. Rebekka played piano since she could hit a note, sketched when she could hold a pencil, and learned how to sew when she was 12 years old. At the age of 5 she moved to Taipei, Taiwan and learned to adapt to her new surrounding and the Mandarin language. When she was 8, she immigrated to Los Angeles, where she would spend the next 15 years of her creative and cultured existence.

Tragic events, financial hardships, childhood loneliness could have marked her life, but she learned to use her outcasted childhood as a source of compassion for others who are outcasted. She traveled and volunteered in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Germany, France, Japan, Australia and many other states, opening her eyes and inspiring her to greater creativity. Rebekka learned about the great epidemic of human trafficking around the world, she saw the poverty in the eyes of 4 year olds, but also the hunger for love here in America.

Discovering world injustices spurred Rebekka on to use her business as a platform to help others. After graduating from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising with a Fashion Design and Business Management Degree, she taught music to kids in rural China, then worked for an Import Manufacturer. Her innate relational, creative and entrepreneurial wirings caused her to look outside the box, quit her job, and backpack in Australia for one month.

Rebekka Lien currently sells unique clothes and accessories on Ebay and is starting her Jewelry Line. She donates part of the proceeds to support a boy in Ecuador and an orphanage in Moldova (even though she can barely feed herself at times, but she has made helping others a priority in her life). Her goal is to travel to third world countries to educate and train women and girls in life skills such as sewing to prevent women from marrying out of necessity or being sold by human traffickers. Rebekka believes that creativity is essential for healing survivors, creating opportunities for the less fortunate, and living a meaningful life.

Find her on Twitter, her Blog, and be sure to check out her designs at her store.