Yas Gonzalez
Cuban-American Fashion Designer · Miami
She left Cuba at six years old with nothing but the clothes on her back and the memory of a mother who believed in her unconditionally. That memory became the foundation of everything.
Yas Gonzalez built House of Yas from a warehouse in Miami — sewing swimsuits by hand, running every operation herself, threading every bikini with a single pink thread as a signature that no one else could replicate. That pink thread is still the origin story of the brand. It says: I was here. I made this. This is mine.
From that warehouse to Paris Fashion Week — the first Cuban designer to show there — Yas Gonzalez has never stopped moving. Her work has dressed Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama, Pitbull, Ricky Martin, Alejandro Sanz, and Gente de Zona. Her designs have appeared at the Emmy Awards, the Latin Grammy Awards, the Latin Billboard Awards, New York Fashion Week, and Miami Fashion Week. Her collections have been featured in People en Español, Vanity Fair, British GQ, and beyond.
But the numbers are not the story. The story is Cuba.
Every collection House of Yas has ever produced is rooted in Cuban identity — the azulejos of Havana floors, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the bandera, the streets of Calle Habana, the paintings of Mariano Rodríguez, the memory of a country that lives in every Cuban who left it. Yas designs for the diaspora and for the world that wants to understand it.
She is also the founder of The Yas Gonzalez Foundation, which supports emerging artists and children with autism through the arts. She developed an autism sensory clothing line for children aged 2 to 17. She runs Miss Arc Broward, a beauty pageant for young women with special needs. She is a board member of Fashion Group International South Florida. She is a Marketing Director, a professor, a mother, a wife, and a relentless builder.
She studied fashion design at Miami University of Art and Design and Parsons New York. She studied Journalism, Communications, and Broadcasting at FIU and the Art Institute of Miami. She is the product of two worlds — the island and the city — and her work lives exactly in the space between them.
House of Yas is not fast fashion. It is not a trend. It is wearable Cuban art, designed in Miami, made to be remembered.