Central Falls native Michelle Siwy has become a successful fashion designer.

The Providence Journal Files / Sandor Bodo

CENTRAL FALLS — In the back of a computer room at Central Falls High School, behind a wall of materials, girls are trying on jeans and T-shirts.

One girl has donned capris with flats. Another is wearing skinny-leg jeans with tall high heels. One girl has on cutoffs.

In the middle of the girls is a petite woman with black jeans that fit like leggings. It’s Michelle Siwy, the designer of the jeans the girls are wearing. She is matching the girl’s jeans with a simple T-shirt — cinching a belt just below the bustline for one girl, giving another girl a heart necklace to brighten her look.

Do the girls know that these jeans they are wearing are being worn by Britney Spears, Nicole Ritchie, Jessica Alba, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and other celebrities?

They will know soon. Siwy, 30, graduated from Central Falls in 1994 and returned to her alma mater last Wednesday to talk with students about how she came to be a designer and the success she has had with her line of Siwy Jeans.

Siwy notices that not all the girls who will be modeling her clothes have come to try on their jeans. She leaves the room to go look for them.

Her husband, Ed Burke, a videographer for the singer Beyonce, is in the high school auditorium working with some of the girls. He tells the girls to go to the back of the auditorium. When they hear Fergi singing “Fergalicious” two girls at a time are to walk down the aisles to the stage, pose, cross each other, pose and sit on bleachers near the back of the stage.

Siwy’s former teachers and guidance counselor have a surprise for her. They have gathered old pictures of her when she was in high school and baby pictures of her and have made a Powerpoint presentation that includes her favorite songs when she was in high school.

Siwy launched her line two years ago, and she has been doing well, garnering the attention of magazines such as Elle, Marie Claire, Women’s Wear Daily, Lucky and other smaller fashion industry publications. When a photographer snapped a picture of Kate Moss wearing Siwy’s jeans, Siwy really started getting an increase in calls, says Burke. “[Moss] is an icon,” he says.

Soon all the high school girls who are modeling Siwy Jeans have gathered in the auditorium. Burke wants one more practice run. “Make it hot,” he tells the girls. Siwy has joined him.

“Heads up and shoulders back,” Siwy calls to them. “Own the look.”

Soon the decibel level in the auditorium rises as students start to fill it. Siwy’s mother, sister and cousin are there to support her.

After Sue Cranston introduces Siwy, she tells the students she was not expecting to see pictures of herself when she was in high school. She was born in Bali, Indonesia, to a Vietnamese mother and a Polish father. She and her three sisters grew up in Central Falls.

Siwy started out going to the University of Rhode Island to study nursing but that was not what she really wanted to do. She wanted to be a fashion designer. She thanked her Central Falls guidance counselor, Carol Silver, for telling her to follow her heart and pursue what she really dreamed of doing. She ended up at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Out of school, she took a job with an urban designer she had met socially and kept in contact with.

“The pay was not high but I would gain a lot of experience,” Siwy said. After that she worked as a makeup artist and tried to be an actress. Then she started her denim line. In spring 2005, her first shipment of jeans came in.

A student asked Siwy if her jeans can be bought in Rhode Island. She said they can be bought at Berk’s on Thayer Street. One student wanted to know what the Siwy shorts cost: $150. Moans. Another asked: Could Central Falls students have a discount? The jeans cost under $200. “These jeans get better with age,” Siwy said.

A teacher wanted to know if Siwy had the first outfit she made. “The first thing you learn is the basic top. It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Siwy was careful to say that although she is enjoying success there have been many rejections and failures, but she kept trying. “You never give up. You just try that much harder,” she said.

Siwy told the students to not let anyone discourage them. “You have to do the thing you truly want. Sometimes I feel the people from surrounding communities put us down like we are nobody. I know you guys are really good kids just like everybody else. I know some kids have things going on their lives. That is part of life. You can’t let it stop you from doing what you want to do,” she told the students.

Those words spoke to Stephanie Duque, a senior who is thinking of going into business. “A lot of people say you can’t get anywhere if you’re from CF, but she did,” Duque said. “I didn’t know someone from CF had graduated and done well in fashion design.”

That Siwy was studying to be a nurse and switched to fashion design piqued her interest. “I am going into business but I also like fashion design. Maybe I can do something with that.”