Because Central Saint Martins ain't the only game in town: a look at The Academy of Art University MFA show at NYFW

I feel a bit sheepish to admit that I didn't know about Academy of Art University in San Francisco until a few years ago and in fact, when I first found out about it I thought it was associated with a certain art school chain because they unfortunately both have small red logos. Luckily when I heard their graduating MFA students would be showing at New York Fashion Week I did a doubletake and realized my mistake! Not only is this not a chain school, but the MFA students consistently produce some of the most interesting and high quality shows each season. I missed them this year due to Fashion's Night Out so I'm taking the time now to show you highlights from the show.
*all photos by Randy Brooke, unless otherwise noted they are all MFA students in Fashion Design, the italicized text below is their descriptions and the rest is what I think!


Jungah Lee
Jungah used the faded colors of antique books as inspiration for the hand dyeing and painting of her latex and silk fabrics. She mixed water with the dyes and used brushes to obtain a water stained look. She layered, pleated and manipulated the silk fabric to mimic warped and torn pages of old books. Traditional Korean dresses influenced the soft silhouette and lines of her collection.

While I am admittedly a bit skeptical about the longterm wearability of latex, I love the pale-on-pale colors and the texture that she created by her manipulation of the silk. It has a haptic quality that makes me want to touch it and that reminds me a little of Rodarte.



Cara Chiappetta
Cara found inspiration in femininity and examining how a woman is perceived. Bridget Fonda’s character Nina in the film “The Point of No Return” became Cara’s muse. Her fabric choices of rubber, silk, mesh, wool, and nylon influenced garment details, manipulations and bonding techniques. Helmut Newton’s photography helped her capture the mood.

I love how film influences fashion but can't imagine why an American remake of La Femme Nikita by Luc Besson would be more influential than the original! Ignoring this affront to my sensibilities, what works for me in this collection is the mix of softness with unexpected structure and sharpness. Also like the asymmetry of the lapels on the jacket, right.

April Howard
For this collection, April was inspired by the work of found objects sculptor Kathy Kelley, the decaying concrete and plastic of an urban wasteland, and Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road.” Her organic shapes and details are representative of discarded items.

I'm not going to lie: out of all the collections presented this is the one is the one I would most absolutely positively wear. I love the draped leather and find it both sophisticated and sexy. You would never get the sense that "the clothes are wearing you" that can happen with more extreme fashion nor would it ever seem like something you'd find in a chain store. For me, it just works.

Louie Llewellyn, M.F.A. Men’s Wear Design, and Xiang Zhang, M.F.A. Knitwear Design
Louie used the theme of a disagreement between a hard and soft men’s wear silhouette. He designed the woven pieces with sharp edges then added softer fabrics for contrast. He used one of his favorite paintings, Incision by Jay Defeo, for the color inspiration and selected fabrics to evoke a feeling of strength and desire.
Xiang designed the knitwear for the collection. 30+ swatches were created before final combinations were selected. A time-consuming plating technique, knitting with two strands of yarn held by hand and twisted to obtain the desired effect and color combination, was used. Each piece took approximately 50 hours to finish.

I really responded to this collection: the juxtaposition of softness and tailoring. The outfit on the left looks sooo comfortable and still somewhat formal which isn't an easy feat. And I also like the tailoring of the jacket on the right as well as the cool/pale color palette of that look. If these two made women's clothes in a similar vein I think they'd be brilliant as well.

Print Collaboration – A group of Technical Design, Fashion Design and Textile Design students worked together on this collection. The designers used several sources of British influences as inspiration such as the television series “Brideshead Revisited,” British interiors, and uniforms of Oxford University and cricket.
The textile designers focused on the prints, the fashion designers created the look, the technical designers drafted the patterns, and then the technical and fashion designers constructed the garments.
Technical Designers Lindsey Gong and Jackie Nguyen. Fashion Designers Anasa Greaves, Han Yoon, and Emma Erickson. Textile Designers Ruby Guerra, Gabrielle Cols, Yi-Hui Wen, Amanda Carrillo, Chanchai Tanapornwattana, Jennifer Chen, Sarah Appiah, Jennifer Filo, Adriane-Lauren Hueso, and Leah Rossi.

Boldly pushing pattern-on-pattern to the extreme the Print Collaboration made fun and somewhat theatrical dresses. I recently went to the Japan NOW exhibit and symposium at the Fashion Institute of Technology and if I didn't read the description about their influences I would say that some of these were the descendants of Japanese fashion from the Eighties. (which to me is a good thing!) And the dress on the right with the massive flower prints is like a modern southern belle. Definitely one of a kind works that would fit in at an art opening: on someone attending or in the exhibit itself.

 
Camilla Olson
Inspired by the movie “Blade Runner” and samurai arts, Camilla’s collection represents women as rebels breaking the restrictions of their historically constrained roles. The soft silk under-dresses represent a woman’s inner nature and the outer ‘cage’ is her strength and armor.

Okay, maybe I'm a closet cinephile, but the film reference is once again leaving me at a loss since I just watched the remastered director's cut of Blade Runner less than 3 weeks ago and I don't see the influence. And I feel like the explanation feels a little bit like didactic feminism-lite and isn't reflective of the clothes...okay. I'm done with my critique of the statement.

When I look at the collection what I respond to is the geometry and the energy of the lines. All of the dresses have these outer pieces of thin lines that lead your eyes and give a sense of motion.  It feels slightly futuristic (without the nihilism of Blade Runner) and both urban and urbane.

Maria Korovilas
After completing classes in Tambour Beading in the School of Fashion, Maria incorporated metal encrusted pieces and details into her collection. The hand beading took over 600 hours to complete. The starting point of her inspiration was the Jenny Lewis song “You Are What You Love” from which she pulled visual and conceptual references for her moody collection.

When I researched this show online I read a comment from someone that these pieces made her think of princess dresses –which was said as praise. I would concur that a sophisticated modern day princess would indeed wear Maria's designs. They are intricate and opulent but the color tones and styles keep it far away from any music video style "bling factor". I'm utterly impressed with the craftsmanship of the work but actually wouldn't have minded a pop of color that was a bit bolder. Part of the fun of fashion is imagining yourself wearing the clothes, and despite the intricacy of the designs with the main colors a bit bland I feel I would be washed out or lost beneath the layers.