MSU Presents Its 2016 Apparel and Textile Design Annual Fashion Show

EAST LANSING, MI — The annual Apparel and Textile Design (ATD) Fashion Show is a juried student fashion show for Michigan State University students.  The fashion show is the capstone event of the design program.   It is a culmination of creative explorations of  avant-garde fashion designs.  According to the Oxford dictionary, avant-garde is the new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them. 

 

The event will feature unique collections designed by students and is juried by industry professionals, Tiff Devine, the Senior Menswear Designer from Macy’s NYC and Paulina Petkoski, the founder of Playground Detroit.  The students even get to hold a model call. Their garments are worn by runway models they choose themselves.

 

The Apparel and Textile Design program emphasizes creativity and experimentation that combines design with art. There are currently 150 students enrolled in the program.  

 

Students combine fine art, couture fashion, and technical design to create original avant garde fashion designs, which reflect an understanding of global issues such as sustainability, cultural dress, and design movements.

 

Many educational institutions only allow graduating seniors to participate in their annual show.  ATD encourages students from all levels to compete and participate.  Giving all of the students an opportunity to get experience has always been available since the fashion shows began.

 

Student designer Sean Smith said, “The ATD fashion show is the culmination of the best avant-garde designs made throughout our program and the university. For many younger designers, this is the first opportunity for them to display their hard work outside of a classroom setting and experience what goes into a fashion show. For our senior designers, the fashion show provides an opportunity for displaying leadership and pushing the boundaries of their work while showing their identity as a designer. Many designs are created with the fashion show in mind and can only be fully actualized on stage. Because the designs are finally able to walk and breathe, the ATD fashion show is part fashion exhibition, part performance art.”

 

In its fifth year, the show is anticipated by the community on campus and at large.  It is being held on Friday, March 4, 2016 at 7 pm at the Wharton Performing Arts Center.  Tickets may be purchased for $17.00 at the box office and online.

 

2016 Designer Statements

 

Calley Jastrow: Calley’s designs reflect an abstraction of the spiritual and emotional components of ordinary ideas, transforming them into something more. She is able to take the innate substance of a moment, drawing it out and shaping it to her clientele.

 

Michael Lemus: Through tailored silhouettes and a Surrealist point of view, Michael invokes a sense of desire and sensuality for the client he designs for.

 

Alex Sant: Focusing on minimalism and structural interest, Alex gathers inspiration from both modern art and architecture. With a keen eye for sharp angles and clean lines, she concentrates on how all of these elements can be translated into apparel. 

 

Tabitha Breaugh: Using personal experiences to push conceptual limits, Tabitha strives to create effortless, yet distinctive garments allowing the wearer to feel authentic. To feel resolution. The same things she feels designing – are able to manifest what influences and inspires her into something tangible and extraordinary.

 

Kat Crowley: Kat Crowley brings new life to femininity by using draped silhouettes, softly sweeping color palettes, and delicate details. She is influenced by real life romanticism found in her family lineage, which pulls together her timelessly classic aesthetic.

 

Olivia Vinckier: Architecture, geometric lines, and travel compel Olivia to design.

 

Jess Burkhard: As a designer, Jess is interested in the relationship between strength and fragility and questions if both qualities can co-exist within the human figure. Using intricate techniques and persistence she works to encapsulate the power of these qualities in her designs.

 

Megan Carty: The quiet hours of dusk and night, when darkness ignites imagination and vulnerability, these are the violet hours. Megan’s designs follow the inspiration of duality that occur in the solitude of night. The farthest realms of the mind in which both bring dreams and nightmares and nightmares are aroused. Reflected in concept and silhouette, Megan’s designs explore a balance between the fragile and the malevolent.

 

Laurence Coquilhat: Laurence strives to explore constraints on women’s sexuality in society. His worldly experiences enable him to push boundaries that have been established. He pushes viewers on sexuality while revealing erogenous zones of a woman’s body.

 

Mimi Pinciotti: Growing up, it was always Mimi’s natural instinct to be creative and she has always been inspired by the art of fashion. It is only fitting that her designs are inspired by the outside nature that we live in and our natural instincts as humans.

 

Samantha Ruedisueli: Samantha aims to reintroduce elements of the past and historic narratives through modern silhouettes.

 

Sarah Vocke: Sarah Vocke’s apparel design aesthetic is focused on capturing the loveliness of unexpected minimalism. Creating wearable sculptures, she seeks to question and challenge socially accepted garment silhouettes and fabrics. She finds inspiration in the normality and casual conflicts of everyday life.

 

Carlo Pardo: Carlo draws inspiration for his art and designs from the vibrant and diverse world around him, driven by strong appreciations for culture and nature. Through the combinations of hard and soft lines as well as contrasting color pallets, Carlo’s work employs the use of visual and conceptual balance.

 

Demetrius Few: Demetrius unites concepts from metropolitan environments with those of distant times and places for his designs. Preferring a minimalist color palette, he relies heavily on texture to add emphasis to his work.

 

Zuwhaib Razzaq: Zuwaib Razzaq is a multi-media storyteller and artist. He has honed his creative eye to spot potential in nonconventional spaces. He finds inspiration in the unexplainable darkness and the beauty that flourishes there. His designs are a reflection of that beauty.

 

Maclain Credeur: Dynamic designs conceptualized from the eclectic narratives of MacLain’s reasoning, are meant to both inspire the minds of his viewers as well as evoke feelings of personal connection. It is androgyny met with deeply rooted desires for societal change, which guide MacLain’s pieces into manifestation.

 

Mitch Fehrle: Mitch is moved to explore the convergence between the natural world and the human experience. Through form, texture, and silhouette he hopes to translate the fruits of this exploration into the hearts and minds of those who may need it most. He seeks to not only enhance physical exposure to nature, but foster a willingness to embrace it.

 

Sean Smith: Sean’s work explores sexual and bodily identities through spatial interactions. Using the body as a performative medium, Sean’s work reimagines and unlearns normative roles to achieve new autonomies.

 

Ashley Anne: Ashley Anne is a designer who is revolutionizing the fashion industry with a combination of determination and fearlessness. She strives to reach carnivores of high fashion. Her mix of unconventional materials, technology, and streetwear is spicing up the avant-garde market. Ashley Anne is constantly evolving to reach those in a high paced city that have a need for a one of a kind garment.

 

Hunter Walton: Unafraid of beginning conversations about sensitive topics in person, Hunter works to achieve the same affect with her garments. She hopes beginning these conversations will cause viewers to assess their own understanding of topics and push themselves and others in thought and comfort, eventually becoming a catalyst for positive change.

 

Capelle Gabrielle: A song in the minor key pulling at your heart stings; that is the feeling that Capelle Gabriel wants to explore and replicate in her work. Without overt gloom, she seeks to explore a somber tension while creating balanced and harmonious work. Innovative, techy fabrics often serve as inspiration for her nuanced, modern pieces.

 

Cari Marcotullio: Drawing inspiration from urban nature environments and how they are minimal to the extent that each organism serves a purpose; Cari plays with the juxtaposition between planned space and organic form. She integrates clean and structural lines with feminine silhouettes and soft textures.

 

Emma Theis: Designer Emma Theis uses clean lines and techniques to sync perspectives from the past with contemporary view points in a conceptual way. She often pulls inspiration and shape from eras of the 20th century and uses them in her sleek and modern designs.

 

Emmy Zaatar: Designer Emmy Zaatar pulls inspiration from the organic shapes and rhythms found in nature. She is influenced by the romanticism and vibrant charisma of the Victorian Era as well as the decades of the 20th century.

 

Rachel Brunhild: Taking a feministic point of view on design, Rachel Brunhild is inspired by current social issues surrounding female empowerment. Through clean lines and sharp angles, she brings these elements into her designs.

 

Zani’jah Gardner: Zani’jah Gardner explores topics that strip through reality and lie within the subconscious mind. Her designs pull inspiration from both nature and surreal thoughts.

 

Phoenix Kincaid: Phoenix Kincaid uses macabre imagery to convey themes of mental illness, gender, sexuality, and personal identity. Finding comfort in the darkness, she uses her garments to bring emotions and creatures to life.

 

Isabel Inchaustegui: Isabel captures the transformative moments in life by creating pieces that are equally dynamic and aesthetically pleasing. Inspired by color blocking and hidden details, she creates pieces that will transform the body of the wearer.

 

Alixzandra Jyawook: By combining bold use of color, volume, and romantic ideals Alixzandra is able to express complex characteristics present in her personality.

 

Rachel Reed: Inspired by sculptural works of art as well as nature and aspects of the outdoors, Rachel explores playing with structure and texture through her designs.

 

This article was printed in the February 21, 2016 – March 5, 2016 edition.