Students use designing rooms today to create the clothing of tomorrow

Written by Shambhu Sharan, The Shorthorn staff   

Wednesday, 07 April 2010 10:55 PM

Interior design junior Stephen Norsworthy makes clothing Wednesday morning in the Architecture Building. Norsworthy is using burlap and paper shopping bags to design the outfit. (The Shorthorn: Stephanie Goddard)

One interior design professor said she wishes she and her students could develop and market a couture collection, but for now, she only has space in the School of Architecture Gallery to hone in on that dream.

Students in Interior Design II are designing clothing to showcase in the Interior Design Art Exhibit on April 16 at the School of Architecture Gallery. Students are using fabrics and recycled materials like paper bags, hemp string and cork to construct their creations.

This is the first time the program is designing clothing for an exhibit.

Rebecca Boles, Interior Design program director, teaches a class to address the practical aspects of interior design. For the clothing design project, Veronica Casado Hernandez, a visiting professor and costume designer from Spain, is helping Boles work with students to design garments for display.

The School of Architecture Dean’s Advisory Council will view the student’s designs at the exhibit and look for potential employees.

Interior design junior Jenny Prieto said the project expands her learning experience.

“It is very interesting to see our approach in fashion design as interior design students,” she said.

Prieto designed a dress made from a blue-dyed woolen blanket wrapping the left arm and down to the feet.

“The concept comes from a water drop which represents life,” she said. “The idea of the dress is to show water falling down throughout the center of the body. The rest of the dress is a rigid structure to hold the fabric that represents the water.”

The interior design course is dedicated to three projects. The current project will end with the design of a retail space based on the ideas present in their clothing designs.

Boles said students are accustomed to thinking about interior design strictly in architectural terms and so far, the class has produced some amazing results, both in quality and quantity of ideas.

“I chose a project that would offer me and the students an opportunity to learn from Veronica about the allied discipline of fashion design,” she said. “The exhibition of clothing is not an end in itself. The conceptual ideas behind the clothing will be the basis of their final interior design project for the semester.”

Boles said the course’s content helps develop student’s skills as interior designers.

Hernandez said she has experience working with people from other disciplines and that students are not familiar with designing the clothes.

“The class gives a fresh approach to the creation of garments,” she said. “The result is amazing because students are not trained in this field. They work with different interior design concepts.”

Interior design junior Magaly Torres said she is creating a garment symbolic of nature and aquatic animals.

“I will design a space with the same conceptual idea with which I designed the garment,” Torres said. “The garment will reflect those details by tucking, overlapping, and wrapping. I am currently experimenting with a combination of dark fabric, veil, crinkled paper and scored tape.”

Interior design junior Amanda Lee said she is designing a dress out of different papers and ribbon and will explore with materials.

“I played around with different ideas and experimented with different techniques,” she said. “It is interesting to go from a fashion point of view to interior spaces and architecture.”

Interior design junior Timothy Ballard is making a vest out of sheer plastic, coastal grass and aluminum eyelets. He said instead of using stuffing and cotton, he uses coastal grass as a reinterpretation of materials typically used in clothing.

Ballard said it is good for the students to take architectural theory and apply it to clothing.

“It broadens the understanding of architecture theory and construction,” he said. “This is another way to influence architecture.”