If you blinked at Thursday night's Fashion Focus Chicago 2010 fashion show, then you probably missed all the stomping catwalk action from the local, top student designers from the city. The show was held in a heated tent located at Millenium Park, and was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Personally knowing the chaotic madness that goes on backstage with hair, makeup and last minute designer issues, it was no surprise to see the spotlight shine on cue 10 minutes behind schedule. Definitely worth the wait I must say.
The top 24 design students of Columbia College Chicago, The Illinois Institue of Art- Chicago, The International Academy of Design and Technology- Chicago and the School of The Art Institute of Chicago displayed their talented fashion creativity in 40 minutes. The winner of the Chicago History Museum's FashionNext Generation competition was Brenda Beavers of The Illinois Insitute of Art- Chicago.
Here is Beavers walking in the finale with a model sporting her look. Beavers designed head ornaments that were placed to either the upper left or right side of the hair. The materials used looked like polyester and net assembled together to form an abstract flower shape. The models wore light gold champaign-colored, spaghetti strap and halter top dresses of what looks like rayon material, that hugged the upper body with the hemline grazing above the thigh.
Overall, half of the designs looked ready-to-wear, while some of the other creations simply brought amusement to the crowd's faces. Though, it is the amusing attire which seems to stick in my mind more than the wearable outfits. What stood out the most as far as amusing was by student designer Claudia Macias from the Illinois Institute of Art- Chicago. Her theme looked street inspired. The models walked barefoot and wore very grungy and dirty looking attire. A model wore a square-block strapless top made of newspapers and another model wore a brown wool, off-the-shoulder top with a skirt made of the red inked THANK YOU plastic bags. Michael Schellenbach, also from the same school as Macias, sent out a male model who carefully and skillfully walked down the runway wearing an army green jumpsuit with the pant leg connected to the shoes. This was the best part. The sole of the shoe was the rounded part to an inflated car tire. Alexandre Chandoa of the International Academy of Design and Technology created very unwearable oufits. His designs looked inspired from wooden barrels. Three models sported wooden boards as a top and an angled skirt.
But the rest of the show displayed wearable clothes that shadows exactly what is in for this fall season and past inspirations from the 90s. Velvet made a come back and an essence of Alexander McQueen's 1995 Highland Rape show was demonstrated by a shredded men's suit and women's dress by Katie King of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In general though, lots of silk chiffon was used for dresses in lilac reaching knee-length and formal lengths, there was also lots of wool fabrics mixed in with leather; nothing we haven't already seen fom international designers that have been previewed in the August and September issues of Allure and Vogue magazines.
Photos and story by: Olivia N. Castaneda
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