Angie O’Riley started out as a girl from Indianola who just wanted to go to cosmetology school. She now tells Rosie O’Donnell what to wear every day.

O’Riley was back on the ISU campus over the weekend as one of the guest alumnae for the “Techno 2000” fashion show.

After graduating from Iowa State with her master’s degree in 1988, O’Riley took her skills to Jones of Dallas, a private label for J C Penney, where she designed belts, hair accessories and jewelry for the company. While she loved the creative aspect of the job, she was just “getting her feet wet” professionally.

It was while at Anne Klein, where she started in 1994 developing their plus-size line of clothing, that O’Riley met talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell. O’Riley helped to design an outfit for O’Donnell to wear at an awards show, and three months later, she got a call from O’Donnell’s manager offering her a job.

“It’s been a real challenge. It’s a lot of fun. Obviously, it’s very glamorous. I’ve met every single possible person you could imagine — people that I couldn’t even believe I was meeting,” she said.

O’Riley latest endeavor is as a fit model for Ford Models in New York. As a fit model, O’Riley tries on clothes for designers.

“I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and I had the right body and the right style for the customer they were trying to reach,” she said. “I go into Donna Karen or Anne Klein or wherever, and they try the actual garments on me to make sure they look right before they go ahead and manufacture them en masse.”

O’Riley’s plans for the future include owning her own business. She wants to be able to design and promote her own line of clothing.

She had some advice for students who are at a place where she started out.

“There are a lot of reasons somebody can become successful,” she said. “One of them is you have to be an independent thinker. You have to be self-directed. You have to be willing to take risks.”

O’Riley also advised students to be persistent and not give up.

“Sometimes you have to keep knocking on the door month after month after month to get something that you really, really want,” she said.

O’Riley said no matter where a career starts, anything is possible.

“You don’t have to have a penny in your pocket, and you don’t have to know anyone,” she said. “All of the things I’ve done is just simply by putting myself out there and seeing what happens and building a reputation. Eventually, something good comes along.”