Designer’s fall collection literally rocks
Terenah Idia of the North Side experiments with a fabric made with crushed Indian stone
NEW YORK — Designer Tereneh Idia believes there are important stories that clothing can tell.
For the fall 2018 collection of her Idia’Dega line, which she creates with the Olorgesailie Maasai women’s artisan group in Kenya and the Oneida Indian Nation in New York, a key character is stone. Yes, rocks.
At an intimate New York Fashion Week presentation in February, Ms. Idia, a longtime North Side resident, unveiled “Stone, Silk, Skin: Exploring the Topography of Humans and Earth.” Some of the collection’s pieces incorporate a new sustainable material called Magma fabric by Stonify Labs made from crushed stones from India. The company has an office in Pittsburgh.
Ms. Idia will be in Pittsburgh March 28 to talk about her work at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Downtown, where pieces from her previous collections are on display through April 1. Joining her will be Mary Cook of the Oneida’s Beading
Wolves, who do some of the intricate beadwork for the collections. On March 24, she’ll open her South Side studio for tours and shopping.
So what stories can stone help tell?
“It’s really a part of the heritage of both the Maasai and Oneida,” Ms. Idia told the Post-Gazette during her New Yorkevent.
The former’s country of Kenya is home to many varieties of volcanic rock, and some of the oldest stone tools have been unearthed there. Meanwhile, the word “Oneida” means “people of the standing stone.” The connection carries over to Pittsburgh, too, given its varied topography. (Plus, the Oneida are part of the Iroquois, who widely inhabited Western Pennsylvania centuries ago .)
Ms. Idia said, “I wanted us to think about our interactions with the earth.”
The clothes reflect this history with a neutral-rich palette of grays, browns, olive and gold. Ms. Idia used the stone fabric, which looks like textured concrete, to accent dresses and wraps. Cascading hand-beaded jewelry added a finishingtouch.
“There’s something intriguing about it,” she said about designing with repurposed stone. While the thick material has been used for protective cases for laptops and phones, she believes this is the first time someone has us edit for clothing.
It becomes more pliable when wet, so she steamed and ironed it to make it flexible for cutting and sewing. A trip to Home Depot for protective concrete sealant was a new and unusual part of the design process.
Fabric of the future? “It has potential,” she says. While it’s too stiff for an entire outfit, thinner versions backed with felt are becoming available that could be easier to work with.
“I want to keep using it and getting better with it,” she says. “It was great to challengemyself.”
She hopes her work also challenges those who wear it — to think more closely about multiculturalism, female empowerment and sustainability.
“It’s about being able to show a different manifestationof fashion and art.”