Runway Report
The trends at three student graduation shows.
ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY
You didn’t need to be Sarah Mower, chief critic for Vogue.com and special guest at the Academy of Art University’s Spring Show Student Showcase on May 6, to see that the clothes weren’t just worthy of the runway, but of luxury boutiques, too. Student flights of fancy soared from the sheerly fanciful to retail-ready ensembles this year under the eye of the fashion school’s executive director, Simon Ungless. In past years, students’ career hopes centered around fame as fashion house creative directors. But as the industry puts emphasis on churning out multiple collections a year at a profit, and ousting designers who don’t, students’ ambitions have changed. “This particular group were quite humble, very grateful, and worked hard,” Ungless said. They were not so focused on being creative directors, but part of a team. They understand that’s how the industry works.” Collaboration led to standout looks among the 19 collections by 33 fashion, textile and jewelry design students. Amy Hsu Tzu Chen and Xiaowen Wendy Zhang used raffia and packaging materials as yarn for technical raschel knitting that created pleats that cascaded like a waterfall. Textile and fashion major Jiran Xia developed textiles with floral prints for her simple geometric silhouettes that sought to reflect nature and human life in co-existence, paired with jewelry by metal arts student PeiLing Ann Tsai (Xia won student designer of the year at the recent Surtex designext competition in New York.) Aastha Shah and textile student Peggy Kuo collaborated on prints and flowing apparel inspired by Indian holidays, while Julie Kintner’s menswear was influenced by the Pacific Northwest wilderness and outdoor extreme clothing. Vivian Cho’s black bustier matched with plaid pants echoed the avant-garde work of Yohji Yamamoto, while Bowen Tien’s wearable sleeping bags, a.k.a. puffer jackets, showed design and technical skills that sent the collection ahead of the curve.