Born in Ukraine, and raised in Belarus, Natallia Pilipenka moved to NYC, where she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, graduating in May of 2007.  While at FIT, she was honored to have her final thesis project "Confusion" featured on the cover page of the May 2nd, 2007 edition of Women’s Wear Daily.  Upon graduation, she received the school’s Critique Award for her specialization of Current Scene, as well as a design award presented by Cotton, Inc.  She was also a semi-finalist in the CosmoGIRL! - Born to Lead design competition.

In 2007 Natallia was awarded a 3-month internship at the Anne Valerie Hash Design Studio in Paris for two of her garments featured in the Arts of Fashion 2007 International Fashion Design Competition in Miami.  In October 2008 she showed her ‘Twist, Stack, & Wrap Around’ collection at the Arts of Fashion 2008 International Fashion Design Competition in San Francisco, part of the Debut Series sponsored by YKK.  The collection was later featured for the Spring/Summer ’09 season at Début, a New York City boutique dedicated to emerging designers.  In November 2009 Natallia was awarded a showroom space at the Arts of Fashion 2009 International Fashion Design Competition in Philadelphia, where her ‘Children of the Dark’ collection was featured.  In July 2010 she joined the Designers team teaching at the Arts of Fashion Summer Program in Paris.  In October 2010, during Funkshion Fashion Week in Miami, Natallia won the Fashion Group International (South Florida Region) Emerging Designers Competition with her "Children of the Dark" collection.

In Fall 2010 Natallia began teaching fashion design at Parsons The New School For Design in the Fashion Design BFA program.  In 2012 she was accepted to the prestigious MFA Fashion Design and Society program at Parsons, headed by Shelley Fox.  Unparalleled in the United States, the program combines intensive studio-based projects with design research.  In Spring 2013 Natallia was awarded the Donna Karan Scholarship Award, and successfully completed her studies in 2014 while continuing to teach in the Parsons BFA program.  Her graduate thesis collection “erased” was shown in September during New York Fashion Week as part of the MFA Fashion Design and Society graduate show at Milk Studios.  Lace became a key element in Natallia’s collection, and was generously sponsored by Sophie Hallette.  While working on her thesis, Natallia was also awarded a sponsorship by Filpucci yarns and Cariaggi yarns, including the Umbria Cashmere District Award.  The sponsorship enabled her to gain invaluable experience through travelling to Umbria, Italy and working in the factory with skilled technicians to produce the fine knitwear in her thesis collection.