On October 7, 2023, RMCAD held its annual Fashion Showcase at the International Design Collection Building in Denver. Each year, the Fashion Showcase allows fashion design students to exhibit their phenomenal work. Additionally, the event is the perfect opportunity for cross-program collaboration for all RMCAD students. This year four RMCAD student participants gave us their take-aways.
Dasha Chavez – Follow your inspiration
Dasha Chavez, a junior in the Fashion Design program, began preparation for this year’s showcase back in June, to give herself plenty of time to seek inspiration! To fit this year’s showcase theme of “Transformative,” Chavez drew inspiration from moths! “I really like knitting so I found a technique called drop of stitching that creates a continuous hole in the garment which got my inspiration going! I had a class about textiles where I learned about natural fibers that moths are attracted to as their main food source,” Chavez told us. This inspiration went on to not only inform the inclusion of the motif of wings but also her muted color palette.
Ryan Mitchell – Always be prepared
Ryan Mitchell is a senior in the Music Production program, who can attest that as a music producer having a back catalog of work is vital. Before the Fashion Showcase, RMCAD reached out to music production students, like Mitchell, looking for audio to accompany the designer’s video highlights that would play during the show. Mitchell estimates his backlog to be 200-250 saved songs. He says: “I think it’s really good practice to be prepared, especially if you want to go into the arts, which is competitive. If you have people waiting too long for you, then they are more likely to hire someone else. So when a person asks me for a certain type of song, I can pull up 20 tracks to choose from.”
Justin Morales – Be quick on your feet
Justin Morales, a senior in the Fashion Design program, can tell you that even with months of preparation to get his collection for the showcase just right, he still had to be a fast problem solver the day of. Morales shared, “(while) ironing one of my very flowy skirts, the iron burned marks on the middle of the skirt. Luckily, it was on the backside, so it was easy to hide. I just had to pinch the fabric, and sew the burn mark inside the skirt.”
Taylor Solberg – Trust your team
Taylor Solberg is a junior in the Photography program, who assisted on the day of the Fashion Showcase by taking photographs of the event. Solberg described her approach to event photography as trusting her team of fellow photographers. She kept her head “on a swivel,” looking for new shots and seeing what her classmates were capturing, saying “I wanted to capture the atmosphere around the show. I remember a lot of people reacting to the pieces. I focused on their reactions rather than the actual pieces mostly because I knew it was already being covered.”
RMCAD is a space for collaboration where we lift each other up, regardless of major! Dasha Chavez shared, “Seeing other students’ work for the first time was amazing! It was a really fun surprise.” Follow the link to learn more about a BFA in Fashion Design or to read another story about other fashion design students, please click here.
Many of the quotes in this story have been edited for brevity and clarity by the author, but are meant to retain the significance and purpose of the original speaker.
