San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
CHANGING FASHION
Graduate shows: S.F. students’ work reflects diversity, and an industry in transition
Racism and immigration are hot buttons on the world stage, and in smaller theaters, too, as Bay Area fashion students took to the runways with year-end collections that reflected political tensions or presented an escape.
Diversity, inclusion and cooperation emerged as words to design by, as student designers, some of foreign heritage, increasingly seek to work cooperatively toward a common goal.
In some schools, collaboration was required, but at Academy of Art University, it is a student-driven trend, said Simon Ungless, the fashion school’s executive director.
The opening collection at the academy’s graduation fashion show, one of 18 presented on April 26, featured 12 looks by 10 design students who used a cinematic textile print made by Mario Chinchilla, 24, a native of Honduras, that was meant to represent the dichotomy between “emptiness and fulfillment” and “distortion and clarity.”
“I could see my prints very literally, but the way they constructed things just opened my mind in many other possibilities, so I enjoyed to come from one point and end up in another point,” Chinchilla said.
Other textiles in his portfolio were darker in nature, inspired by thoughts of past war, revolution and torture in Chile heavy on his mind this year. “I wanted in my textiles to express the roughness of it, the difficulty of it,” Chinchilla said. “If you touch the material, I wanted to transport that feeling in the moment of the people fighting into my work. This is the denim; I burned it, like they used to burn cars in the street.”
Ungless noted that fashion students “are often at the forefront of new thinking and new trends, not just in color and fabric but thought-process trends — maybe they do feel a reaction against some of the stuff that’s going on in the world.”
There’s another, more practical reason for students’ behavior. The days of the star designer may be over, as designers burn out from pressure over multiple collections per year or are shown the door for failing to deliver profits.
“They understand where the industry is, which is about collaboration and working together,” Ungless said. “Our students are mimicking that here.”
Panama native René Henley, a senior in fashion design at City College of San Francisco, turned to a desert epic of the big screen, “Lawrence of Arabia,” not for its setting amid World War I, but the saturated sand and sunset colors of the Arabian Peninsula. His collection of five looks in the student show May 20 was intended for “a strong, fresh woman who wants to walk the streets in clothes that will make her feel like a character in life.”
Political statements “are always good — we need to keep people aware,” Henley said. “At the same time, there are times when you want to sit back, relax and watch something beautiful without hidden messages.”
Cooperation was required at California College of the Arts, where students worked in teams on challenges involving development of experimental fabric, virtual reality and construction, and also explored diversity of experience, including the loss of home and the celebration of ancestry in their show on May 11.
Collaboration was also required for juniors at San Francisco State University in two challenges — one with mood boards and recycled clothing, and another designing for people with a range of disabilities — that were presented along with 20 senior collections on May 10.
Margarita Ayala, 30, of Oakland, a junior in the apparel design and merchandising program, fused her design partner’s 1980s geometric figure concepts into a black-and-white skirt and jacket with patch pockets and militaristic squared shoulders. Her aesthetic was inspired by her sister, a community activist, and Oakland itself. “A lot of movements have come out of Oakland, like the Black Panthers,” Ayala said. “I’m inspired by anything that continues solidarity among communities.”
Benjamin Mu, 24, a junior in apparel design, was paired with a dyslexic, transgender student who identified herself only as Tavi T., and sought a sheer, chiffon dress to make her feel feminine and empowered. “The beauty of fashion is to make people feel good, feel confident, feel happy about their second skin,” Mu said. “The goal of fashion is to work toward kindness, happiness, diversity and inclusion.”
Ligia Andrade Zuniga, 38, of San Mateo, who suffered a spinal cord injury in 2009, considered it a responsibility to participate as a model in the disability challenge to create awareness about wheelchair users’ need for more functional clothing.
Her garments by Rita Chao and Hao Tang fit the bill: a ladylike floral pencil skirt, a stretch lace top (that doesn’t itch) and a reversible poncho with easy-to-access armholes.
“There’s no reason why individuals with disabilities should have to look disheveled all the time,” said Zuniga, a sexuality and disability educator. “I am a professional. My work requires me to be put together. When the way that you present yourself is not the way you would like to present yourself, it’s very disheartening, and it makes you very insecure. Society does not embrace you as you would like to be embraced. It’s important.”
And while most all fashion schools teach courses in sustainable fashion and social responsibility, Leonora Huynh, a senior in apparel design at San Francisco State, is fusing them with a twist.
“I’ve made it a goal to never say no when anyone needs help from me,” Huynh said, whether fixing a classmate’s sewing machines or sewing problem. “That’s me doing my part to sustain an environment that everyone wants to be in. I don’t think there’s a use in having a green world and an environment that is super recyclable and reusable if it’s filled with mean people.”