Columbia junior fashion students Lizzy Fowlkes and Ro Bradford will go to Milan in October to show their collections at Fashion Italia Graduate, an international fashion event that brings together students from all over the world to showcase their designs.
“It doesn’t feel real yet,” said Bradford. “It feels like I’m in a dream, but it also feels nice to have my hard work recognized.”
Fowlkes and Bradford were among 11 Columbia students in the “Fashion Design Studio One” course who have been working since last fall to design a collection of five looks, united under the theme of “A Love Letter to Chicago.” The student’s constructed looks were then judged and selected by a panel of Columbia School of Fashion faculty, including Associate Professor Justin LeBlanc, Assistant Professor Jenny Du Puis and Practitioner-in-Residence Jacob Victorine.
The winners were announced on Thursday, May 1.
“I’m really grateful for this opportunity, and honestly, I’m just really excited,” Fowlkes said after learning she was selected. “I’m definitely excited to rise to the challenge, hopefully, and push myself to go above and beyond to really represent Chicago and Colombia.”
After being invited back again to showcase work in the 2025 show, “Fashion Design Studio One” faculty interwove the design process required for the show into their second semester of their syllabus, allowing for an entire class to be eligible to showcase their work. In addition, students will once again receive funding to complete their collection once selected by a panel of judges, a deliberation process that began in March.
“We’re only the second group to ever submit for it,” said junior fashion design major Jenna Vandiver. “We’re one of only three or four American universities that show over there, so it’s been really exciting.”
Fall 2024 was the first semester that Columbia had participated in Fashion Italia. Shortly after Chicago was named sister city to Milan, Colbey Reid, director of the School of Fashion, received an email from Fashion Italia Graduate inviting Columbia students to participate in that year’s celebration, with the entry fees being waived to honor the newly formed partnership.
“I was thrilled,” Reid said. To ensure that students selected would be those of merit rather than financial standing, Columbia used some of their funding received through the Driehaus Design Initiative, a nonprofit organization established to promote access, education and appreciation of fashion design and history in Chicago.
“We’re super, super grateful to the Driehaus Design Initiative and the late Richard Driehaus for being such great supporters of our students and their creative enterprises,” said Reid.
In addition to funding, the timeline was short, and students needed to create an entire collection. Both senior fashion design students Rae Braezeale and Joelle Olabode were selected last semester by faculty to display their collection, and Jenny Leigh Du Puis went to help the students through the event.
Every student had the option to exempt their work from the competition, but each one rose to the occasion and accepted the challenge.
“I think this group was kind of special and handled the stress and pressure of the situation a lot better than might typically be expected of a studio class like this,” said Lauren Peters, associate professor in the School of Fashion. “They’ve developed such a warm and supportive community amongst themselves.”
In addition to creating the collection and look, instructors required students to receive certification at the 10th floor fabrication facility in the 623 S. Wabash building, home to the machines that require training such as the laser printer and jet cutting machine.
“Our BFA in fashion design does explore fashion as a creative discipline rooted in design thinking,” Peters said. “Part of that is kind of thinking through and pushing the boundaries of what fashion can be, especially as we consider fashion as an artistic and creative medium.”
Along with expanding the materiality of the student’s creativity, the theme, “A Love Letter to Chicago,” was selected by Peters to celebrate Columbia’s unique identity as well as highlighting Chicago’s sisterhood to Milan.
“We had explored this theme last semester with our seniors, and it was really productive and I think an interesting starting point for the students’ research,” said Peters. “Not many of [the students] take the time to think about the history and culture outside of the kind of Columbia College Chicago bubble that they live.”
Junior fashion design major Ciara Brophy, one of the participants, designed her collection around the many natural paths formed in Chicago over time called Desire Paths, some of them being Milwaukee Ave., Archer Ave., Lincoln Ave. among many others. Inspired by their symbolic representation of the many differing paths we can create for ourselves, she constructed a knit dress that hugs to the body with straps that construct inspiring shapes,akin to the Desire Paths, snaking along the body.
Unfortunately, with about two weeks before the deadline, Brophy broke her finger but was able to complete her look with the help of Peters.
“It was a really complicated process to try to figure out how to work around that,” Brophy said. “You never really know how much you use your finger, just one of your fingers, until you can’t use it anymore.”
“I felt like with Desire Paths specifically, like my own journey in Chicago, I could kind of pair it with that,’ she said.
Vandiver related the theme to the often tumultuous winters Chicago’s lakefront exhibits and the tension that exists between the often structured city and that natural almost reclaiming power the lakefront displays.
“I’m from Alabama, so I’m only up here during the school year, and being up here from the South is definitely a lot colder than what I grew up with,” Vandiver said.
On display within her collection is that relationship, flaws and all — her looks also highlighting the downsides that come from modern meddling and the lake’s resilience. To display this Vandiver used worbla, a wood fiber that one can mold and melt to their desired shape, which is being molded into the shape of the mannequin’s bust and later distressed.
“They’re very organic pieces juxtaposed with these very natural flowing silk pieces, which is supposed to kind of lend towards the beauty of the calm and beauty at the lakefront, while also showing kind of this tension and clash between the lakefront and the city,” Vandiver said.
Her final look was made up of a skirt and a corset-style top, finished to look metallic.
Also inspired by their move to the city, was fellow junior fashion design major Charlee Lambert.
“I’ve only been living here for about three years now, and the concept really pushed me to examine Chicago for what it was in front of me, I didn’t have some deep connection to it,” Lambert said. “I had to really take Chicago for what I had experienced it as.”
The graffiti and street art of the streets is what inspired Lambert, more specifically, the nature in which the art is outlawed, but continues to exist in defiance. Always wanting to provoke with their fashion, Lambert also tied their collection to recent legislation surrounding trans rights.
“I really explored just the intersections of how the government tries to erase the people that make it so colorful,” said Lambert. “I really wanted to make it as explicit as possible, that it was also about trans people.”
Their collection explored and blurred the boundaries between athleisure and streetwear, but their complete look was what they wanted to be their “showstopper gown.” A 16 panel grey turtleneck dress complete with a petticoat was created, embroidered and embellished with Lambert’s own tag logo spraying the trans colors across the structured look.
“You can say as much stuff in your concept statement and thinking about your design, but I think it really translates when it’s really readable and for an audience, because it provokes more thought from people who wouldn’t naturally go there,” Lambert said.
“One of the things that I always proudly proclaim when I’m talking to prospective students for our program is I proclaim we love Chicago. We’re not apologizing for Chicago,” Reid said. “And that’s really what we want this to be, young designers who love Chicago, who are grounded and rooted in Chicago and Chicago style, taking that out into the world, and showing it off a bit more.”
Copy edited by Patience Hurston
Resumen en Español:
Estudiantes de moda de Columbia, Lizzy Fowlkes y Ro Bradford, fueron seleccionados para presentar sus colecciones en octubre en Fashion Italia Graduate, un evento internacional en Milán.
Ambos forman parte del curso “Fashion Design Studio One”, donde 11 estudiantes crearon colecciones inspiradas en el tema “Una carta de amor a Chicago.” Un jurado de profesores eligió las propuestas ganadoras.
Las colecciones reflejan aspectos únicos de la ciudad, desde caminos urbanos y el lago Michigan hasta el arte callejero y temas sociales como los derechos trans.
Resumen por Doreen Abril Albuerne Rodriguez
