Lights, Camera,
Fashion
It
has all the makings of a reality television series:
Invite a group of student designers to participate
in a New York City fashion show. Throw in an MTV
crew, the Big Apple press corps, clicking cameras,
flashing lights, and models showing off the students’ best stuff on a runway surrounded by ultra-hip New
Yorkers.
OK,
reality TV hasn’t gone there yet. But five
fashion design majors from the College of Visual
and Performing Arts experienced a real introduction
to the fashion world when they exhibited their designs
in the prestigious Teens in Fashion runway show,
sponsored by YM magazine during New York City’s
Fashion Week last February. “It was an unbelievable
moment to walk out on the runway and see my entire
collection on the models,” says Vanessa Delaine
’06.
Delaine,
Diana Heredia ’04, Rachel Katz ’05, Krissy
Lipka ’06, and Elizabeth Lopez ’05 were
among eight finalists nationwide chosen for the
show. To reach the runway, each submitted two design
sketches with accompanying fabric swatches to the
Teens in Fashion design competition last fall. They
were selected from among 72 entrants by a blind
panel of judges that included fashion editors from
The New York Times and YM, a fashion photographer,
and a designer. “They’re talented illustrators
who can draw and communicate their ideas rapidly
and beautifully,” says fashion professor Jennifer
Griffin G’89, who oversaw the students’
entries. “It’s one thing to think of an
idea and produce a lovely drawing. But when you
actually have to construct the piece and it has
to fit and look good, walk down a runway, relate
to other pieces, and grab attention, it’s a
whole other level.”
For
the show, the students created as many as eight
outfits. Their collections ran the gamut from casual
sportswear to elegant evening attire and featured
a spectrum of colors and fabrics, including knitwear,
denim, silk, chiffon, and satin. A key consideration
for many of the designs was balancing comfort and
style. “You want to be creative, but at the
same time it’s important to keep in mind what
people our age wear,” Lipka says. “We
like to be comfortable.”
In
New York, they worked with stylists and models,
fitting and altering their collections right up
until show time. “A lot of technical stuff
outside of your control can come into play,”
Lopez says. Delaine, for instance, had to request
new models—one was swimming in her outfit and
another couldn’t fit into anything. “People
invested a lot of money in the show and the press
was there to see what we could do,” she says.
“We really had to step up to the challenge.”
Professor
Karen Bakke ’67, G’69, chair of the Department
of Fashion and Design Technologies, says the show
was like a fantasy for the students. “They
were living what they’d read about in magazines
and seen on television—all the hype and activity
and craziness behind the scenes,” she says.
“They went from student status to star status
in one night.”
Beyond
that, Bakke says, the students’ success excited
classmates about future contests, and New York press
coverage of the show generated interest in the SU
program. “It took a while for the experience
to sink in,” Heredia says. “It hit me
that night when I watched the news and realized
everyone just saw us on TV and they were talking
about our collections.”
—Jay
Cox
