She’s a single mom who arrived in America a Russian refugee. She vacations with her ex and his girlfriend. And her preferred method of transportation is her bicycle. Who is this eclectic 30-something woman?

Anya Ponorovskaya’s mom was just 24-years-old when she left Leningrad with her two young kids. “I cannot imagine having the life she'd had and always be so positive the way she is.” Anya shares. “She survived living in a communist country with two kids…and all the while maintained a positive outlook on life. She had no mother to help her the way I have her—no assistance at all. She arrived in a totally new world…so brave.”

Eventually, Anya put herself through design school at FIT by bartending and running a start-up real estate company (which to this day still exists). In a record month, she was able to put away $30,000 from these two jobs! We’re doing the math and are seriously impressed. Her love of fashion took her to Florence, Italy’s Poly Moda design school where she completed her studies and began to embark on the greatest “job” of her life—being a mom. Dimitri Maxim-Ilya Joseph Williot was born to her and her then boyfriend. Anya couldn't decide on one name so gave him four, though she often calls her now-nine-and-a-half-year-old Dima.

When she returned to NY in 2003, she joined some partners and signed the lease on a small, dilapidated storefront in New York’s NoLita neighborhood to open a women’s boutique, selling clothes and accessories that look great on women for work and play. It would be called GirlCat. Having very little money left, she rolled up her sleeves and did all renovations herself. She even hauled sheetrock across town—scavenged from a lumber yard around the corner from her son's school. Neighbors were so impressed they hired her to renovate their lofts in the neighboring SoHo neighborhood. More work meant more income which provided her with capital to complete the store and buy out her partners. “Opening a store and believing in its success with a three-and-a-half-year-old son was terrifying. Deciding not to buy a cup of coffee in the morning so that Dima could have a slice of pizza for dinner was my reality at the time of the opening of my first store,” she confesses. (She and Dima’s father were no longer together.) Those were difficult times, but Anya knew she couldn't work for anyone else. “I needed my own hours. I felt I had no choice—I couldn't do 9 to 5.”

“I was cutting wood to make shelves, and Dima knows mommy is going to get a store! He said, ‘Mommy is that where the bread and cheese will go?’ For him, a store meant one thing only—food.”

Food it did bring them, but in a different way than Dima expected. The store took off, and a second location with the same intent was opened in a substantially larger space, yet it was equally in need of repair. Once again Anya got to work. And in her free time, she worked on designing her line of women’s wear, which she debuted in her third boutique that opened in 2007—this time in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill neighborhood.

“A single mother will always succeed because she really has no choice,” Anya said. Her son is the reason she takes risks because without them, there is often no pay-off. But she admits that taking on all their responsibilities as a single mom wasn’t without some fear. She says that she had to grow up fast and assume responsibility not just for Dima, but her employees. “Every action I take reflects on another human,” she tells us.

“I feel a huge responsibility to protect my son,” she says. Being a working mom helps her achieve that, and she relishes in the fact that her business not only helps her provide for her own family, but for her employees. “It fills me with an enormous sense of satisfaction that there are 10 people paying rent, paying taxes, and living based on something I created. I feel like I am positively impacting my immediate community—decreasing unemployment. It feels great that I built something from the ground up that provides for people with a job they like.”

“My goal is to keep my family happy so I must keep myself happy. Don't go against your own grain or punish yourself. It is so easy to feel a tremendous amount of guilt as a mother, but the only thing you can really do is make sure that you are happy and following your heart. In return your children will feel the rewards of that. As a mother you never feel like you can do enough, but you must accept yourself so that your children can.”

Dima’s dad is a part of his life—both their lives. “I have a great relationship with his father and his father's girlfriend. We have keys to each other's places, we eat together, we vacation together. Dima feels like he has a complete family. All it takes is to let go of anger. This is the hardest thing to do but also the most rewarding. Dima feels like he has a really big family. He has asked me, ‘why do people need to get married?’”

Anya’s life/work balance is intertwined. When she’s not bicycling around town with him (an accessory Anya is rarely without), Dima’s at school weekdays and at grandma’s house two days a week—she’s teaching him Russian. And he’s with his dad on weekends. He also spends time at GirlCat. “I try to create something fun for him while I am working—choosing fabrics for my designs, painting prints and patterns for my customized linings. It goes like this: ‘Honey, I want a cherry blossom print. Can you incorporate these colors?’”

As far as her designs, the female body is what inspires her. Her clothes are impeccably tailored and incredibly flattering for all body types. “I love love love love when my customers are thankful for the pieces I create,” she tells us. “When I hear ‘for my body it's very hard to find a good fit’ and they walk away thrilled with my clothes there is nothing better. I work tirelessly to create proper patterns, proper fittings just so I can feel good about the product I put out. My repeat customers are my best indication of success. There was a woman who posted a testimonial on yelp.com and I have never met her but her words have been so significant in making me believe in myself. She probably still has no idea how grateful I am for her words.”

Anya is working to expand her eponymous line to include handbags and footwear to create a core collection that is “season-less, age-less, and flattering to a range of body types.”

But it’s Dima who inspires her and advises her. “Recently he said ‘I don't like that on you. Actually, I don't like the last four dresses you made. I like simple shapes, no prints.’ It's funny because it was a total affirmation on my instincts. He keeps me on my toes. If I tell him I need something, he makes sure I find it. He contributes to everything I do. If I need a skirt, he goes with me and hunts one down. He doesn't let me get sidetracked! He's always been that way.”

“One day, I was talking about increasing sales to my salesgirls and all the things we should do. Dima was there and all of a sudden he jumped up and said ‘I have an idea!’ He ran into the street and yelled ‘Who wants to buy my mommy's dresses? At the best prices ever?' I told him, ‘Dima this isn't a flea market!’ But it made her and her salesgirls think: maybe a flea market isn’t such a bad idea.

Dima’s future certainly seems headed for work in a creative field. Anya tells us that he wants to be an inventor. And it’s his mom who he looks up to. “I inspire him because he sees I don't give up and he knows that I'm a tough mommy. When he had a hard time recently and overcame it, he was very proud of himself. He told me, ‘You teach me not to give up.’”

Check out Anya’s designs and learn more about her boutiques at www.anyaponorovskaya.com.