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Photos of SCAD's BFA show, courtesy SCAD
This past May, Racked headed down to Savannah to check out the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) BFA show—and tonight, some of the top students from the school's 2011 graduating class will be teaming up with Elle magazine and Maybelline to present their first-ever collections at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. We caught up with two of the students, Chloe Post and Mary Patton, to find out what they've been up to since graduation and how excited they are to show at New York fashion week.
Mary Patton: Well, the inspiration behind my collection is welding. The summer before my senior year, I took a sculpture class and I learned how to weld. I also knew, from the beginning, that I really wanted to work with knits—my mom taught me how to knit and I've been knitting since high school. All the pieces in my collection are symmetrical—I knitted all of them and just sort of went for it. I didn't have a plan, and hand-sewed everything together. I felt like I was building something.
As for the color palette, I had a tough time figuring it out. I wound up using white and black and a whole mix of different shades of grey—I really like minimalism and stark contrast. And with the grey, the pieces are so much more interesting—the more you look at them, the closer you examine then, the more there is to see.
Since graduate, I've been working on my portfolio and have been corresponding with companies about jobs. I've never actually been to New York before, and now I'm here showing at fashion week, I can't believe it. I'm only here for two or three days, but I'm so excited.
Chloe Post: The inspiration from my collection initially came from a book I'd just finished reading: 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl—the Mayan god. It talks about looking at 2012 in a positive light—as a kind of rebirth and new culture, a merging an returning to nature with advance technologies. I starting thinking about what that girl would want to wear and as I began my research, I looked into tribal paintings of that god and that's where my print inspiration came form.
My color and fabric stories came around after I started working with Chris Benz. I had a lot of looks, and I had a pair of fitted pants that he suggested I do in neoprene. I used it, it was shown during my critiques, and everyone responded really well to them. Then, I wanted to create prints without being obvious, so I decided to laser-cut the neoprene. The collection started out extremely colorful, but my strongest looks were all in black and white.
After graduate, I stayed in Savannah in June and July, and now I'm back in Connecticut and interning in the design department at Tibi. This week is insane, we've started model casting. I'm really happy here.
As for showing, I'm really excited to be at New York fashion week. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again—we grew so close, even people I'm not that good friends with, I'm excited about seeing. I'm actually in the process of making myself an outfit to wear for the show—it will be neoprene and laser-cut, but it'll be turquoise. I'm definitely a designer who likes to use color.
· Savannah College of Art and Design [Official Site]
· Elle [Official Site]
· Maybelline [Official Site]
· The SCAD BFA Fashion Show [Racked]