Designer, Debbie LaFranchi is a native of California.  She was raised in beautiful Petaluma, California, 40 miles north of San Francisco. It was her small town upbringing that Debbie credits with enhancing her creative nature.

Debbie's great grandmother was a seamstress by profession in the early 1900s and would sew dresses for the ladies of the town. It was her grandmother who taught her how to make her own clothes around the age of 12.  She tributes her grandmother for fostering her love of sewing.  Spending many summer days at her Grandmother's ranch sewing clothes and quilts, is one of Debbie's fondest memories.

After graduating from Petaluma High School and then Santa Rosa Jr. College, she attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchanding (FIDM) in San Francisco.  She moved to Los Angeles to finish her design program in 1980.

Not long after graduating, she started working at the Glendale Centre Theatre in Glendale, California.  It was her prolific skill in sewing and design that gained her the coveted job of resident costume designer at the theater.  Over the next 20 years, Debbie designed over 100 theatrical productions for GCT.  Costuming such actors as Dan Roebuck, Willard Pugh, Laurence Zarian and Deborah Rennard.

It was during this time that Debbie became an expert in all periods of clothing.  She designed and made costumes from every period spanning biblical times to present day.

During Debbie's tenure as costume designer at the Glendale Centre Theatre,  the owners opened Glendale Costumes which remains to this day, one of the largest costume houses here in the Los Angeles area.

Debbie built literally hundreds of costumes for the theater and costume shop over the years that remain there, still being rented for films, television, theaters, schools and private clientele.  Her costumes have been seen on such shows as General Hospital, Rosanne and Just Shoot Me.

During this time, Debbie also started her own design business, Debbie's Creative Costumes, making costumes for such clients as the Pasadena Rose Parade, Bally's Atlantic City 'Il Circo", the band OKGO, "King of Queens", PBS's "Mail Call", Renaissance Pleasure Faire, magicians Greg Wilson and Gary Larramore and the LA Philharmonic.

Debbie has been the designer for the last six seasons at DCLO, Downey Civic Light Opera in Downey, California.

Debbie worked as an intregal part of the costume design team at Walt Disney's Imagineering, designing and constructing costumes for Japan's Tokyo Disney Seas.

Debbie's most recent projects include costumes for Disney's upcoming movie, "National Treasure 2"