Patricia Gomez
Children’s Wear
Caguas, Puerto Rico
For this collection I am searching through my deepest memories and trying to puzzle out my present as a Puerto Rican. This ongoing clash between Americanness and Puerto-Ricanness has created a culture that I think can best be described as “esplumao.” “Esplumao” is a Puerto Rican colloquial way of saying “featherless.” In other words, Puerto Ricans have yet to “grow our feathers.”
Internships: Zero + Maria Cornejo
Designer of the Year Candidate
Janelle Abbott
Womenswear
Kenmore, WA
The Body is a House, a Home, a Temple; it is a vessel waiting to be filled with love. In the same way, garments are empty vessels, waiting to be filled with thoughts, dreams, and bodies. Janelle sought out discarded and unused materials in order to bring to them a sense of preciousness through the act of making. She was careful to insure that nothing was lost throughout her investigation thus, the ‘muslin’ became the conceptual and physical foundation for each garment, and mistakes were honored, left present yet concealed. Conclusively, the collection of garments that resulted from these various considerations and pursuits function as a wardrobe for a nomad—a priestess—a wandering heart, restless in life.
Designer of the Year Candidate
Emily Adams Bode
Menswear
Atlanta, GA
I began with the theme of New England, and its relationship to my family. Generations of my family lived by the sea, and spent summers on Cape Cod. I looked at many of my family’s midcentury photographs, and took motifs and images for print design and the color palette in order to create an overall mood. My spring/summer collection heavily represents this washed and worn feel from the found photographs, tying in details from the torn edges of the 1940s snapshots, and the graininess of the prints.
Internships: Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren
Designer of the Year Candidate
You must be logged in to post a comment.