KAREN ALLEN

Biography

 

Born in Chicago…bred in Chicago’s Cabrini Green Housing Projects, Karen Allen always dreamed of a career in performing arts and was inspired by theater, art, dance, music and fashion.  Karen attended Edwin G. Cooley High for middle school. Cooley was also known as a Upper Grade Center for vocational  learning. Later she attended Robert A. Waller High School where she received her diploma. Karen would go on to serve seven years in the United States Army and two years in the Army Reserve.

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Meeting life’s challenges head-on, Karen is a Breast Cancer Survivor, divorcee, and lost a child to pediatric cancer; through it all, she found the strength to carry on and is the proud mother of two of her own children , 2 foster children and grandmother. Karen’s dream of moving to New York City to become a fashion designer came true when she attended F.I.T., The Fashion Institute of Technology. 

After graduating from F.I.T. Karen worked for several design houses on Seventh Avenue. The design house of Giorgio Armani hired Karen for quality control and alterations. This position would prove to have a profound effect on Karen’s life as a designer. She would eventually become a freelance designer and a specialist in alterations. 

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The New York Daily News, 2001, highlighted Karen’s career as a freelance designer. She has since developed an impressive list of private clients and has worked in the costumes department for several Off Broadway plays such as 42nd Street, 110 Under the Sun, The Country Wife and NYU Master’s Dance Education Program.

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Karen discovered her daughter’s, whom she gave birth to after surviving cancer, the learning process was different from other children. Her daughter learns by touching and physical movements. Later she learned  the theory was known as tactile learning style. This discovery, inspired Karen to enroll and attend the College of New Rochelle where she attained her Teacher Certification in Elementary Education while also teaching fashion classes after school. Utilizing this opportunity to reinvent herself, Karen began writing and went on to publish a collaboration project titled “Anthology of Souls”.

Karen is now retired and married to her high school sweetheart. While writing in her journal she found a childhood nursery rhyme that she had decide to remix by adding cadence in order to teach her active young daughter count by singing. 

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Through collaborating with a professional development team of producers, musicians and engineers came the birth of a special project that’s near and dear to Karen’s heart, ”Mrs. Allen’s Patty Cake”!