Designers across the world dream of seeing their clothing worn by models on the runway. Here at South, students in the Advanced Drawing and Advanced Fashion classes are getting the chance to live those designer’s dreams. These two classes are teaming up to design clothes, which will be presented in a fashion show at the end of the semester.

According to Missy Regan, advanced fashion teacher, for this project, the drawing students are sketching garments that the fashion students will then create. On Jan. 11, Regan says there will be a fashion show during lunch blocks showcasing both class’ work. This is the first time these classes have collaborated. Regan says she is excited to see how their work turns out.

“Our vision for this project was to really get the students to collaborate in a way that shows off both of their work,” Regan said. “It’s going to be really cool to showcase those two pieces – actual professional sketches drawn by the drawing students and actual garments that are going to be made by my Advanced Fashion students.”

In terms of the collaboration for this project, since the Advanced Fashion and Advanced Drawing classes are during different blocks, most of the collaboration went through the teachers, according to Lexie Aralis, a sophomore fashion student. Aralis also explained that there was collaboration among students in the same class because they were put into groups, so projects would have the same color scheme or pattern.

According to drawing teacher Stephanie Fuja, collaboration is important for students to learn.

“Especially in today’s society kids can get very isolated in themselves and their smartphones and being one-on-one with that,” Fuja said. “I think being able to work in groups, communicate with different people, share ideas, make eye contact and communicate [is] all so important.”

Because this project has never been done at South, there were many challenges the students faced, according to sophomore Anya Cronin, a drawing student. Cronin explained that she learned problem solving skills through this project; her project was to draw a kimono with white lace, but without white markers, she had to persevere and find a solution to her problem.

“I was trying for a few days, practicing in my sketchbook how to color in marker around it and leave negative space as the lace and that wasn’t working so I wasn’t really sure what to do,” Cronin said. “In the end, I bought my own white marker and I went over it in white, so it was a good problem solving experience.”

Despite the challenges she faced, Cronin says she enjoyed working on this project, with her favorite aspect being the fashion itself.

“This was my first time drawing clothes, so it was interesting to focus on how fabric folds and the shadows and highlights that come with that,” Cronin said. “I might take fashion in the future because it was pretty fun.”   

Both students and teachers believe that the fashion show will be beneficial for students. According to Regan, the show gives students a chance to show off their work in a unique way that will help instill pride in their work.

“I hope they learn to really be proud of their own work,” Regan said. “I think sometimes they get so excited when they finish that they forget about all of the hard work that went into it. I think this will slow them down and [they will] come to the realization that they not just did a good job, but [that] they’re more proud because they get to showcase their work in a different way.”

Even though this is the first time art and fashion are overlapping at South, Fuja says it is common for these subjects to overlap in the real world.  She believes that this project is a unique experience for students because they got a taste of what a real fashion designer experiences.

According to Emma Almburg, a sophomore drawing student, she was able to learn a lot about the difficulties that fashion designers face when working on a design.

“[I learned] that it is very difficult to draw proportioned figurines and just to draw all the designs and fabric on a dress or any other garment,” Almburg said. “I also realized it’s tough for all those designers out there that do it, so it was cool to experience that.”