Saturday, March 17, 2007
'Project Runway,' Radford University style
Design students are wrapping up their final projects for an upcoming fashion show.
Project Runway video
Albert Raboteau | The Roanoke Times
Sarah Doverspike, RU senior, describes her project.
RADFORD -- Fans of the reality show "Project Runway" know the phrase "make it work" means contestants have to quickly finish the garments they are sewing or face elimination.
For the students enrolled in Radford University's fashion design program, "make it work" time is now.
Monday is the deadline for the students to complete their final projects for an annual fashion show they put on in conjunction with the school's merchandising students. The show is a week from today.
Designs will be judged in several categories. The winning outfits will be displayed about this time next year at the Bondurant Center for the Arts on East Main Street, where the university has an art museum.
Between one dozen and two dozen students were expected to have clothes in this year's show, which takes place in Muse Hall.
The Bravo cable network's "Project Runway" has generated more interest on Radford's campus in the work done in the school's fashion program, though it does not appear to have led more students to major in design, said Kathy Mitchell, an associate professor who heads the fashion program.
Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times
Senior Tiana Patierne nears finish of the dress she will enter in Radford University's annual fashion exhibition.
Want to go?
- What: Fashion show featuring designs by Radford University students
- When: 7 p.m., March 24
- Where: Muse Hall, Radford University
Her students were cutting out patterns and draping their partly finished dresses over mannequins one recent afternoon. Amid the flurry of activity, Mitchell said the students are "pretty competitive, but in a good way, in a good sense."
Then, just to make sure, she turned to a couple of students and asked: "Isn't that right girls? It is still healthy, right?"
Her students laughed in agreement.
Earlier this year, the students were assigned to choose a fashion company and make a moderately priced garment that would fit into its product line.
For their final project, the students are making the type of custom, red-carpet-worthy gowns that are anything but moderately priced. Though the custom dresses feature more expensive materials and labor-intensive sewing techniques, they still have to be in keeping with a company's aesthetic to fulfill the assignment.
Along with wowing the fashion show's audience, the custom dresses are supposed to figure highly in portfolios the students can use to try to land jobs in the highly competitive fashion industry.
"My designer was Alexander McQueen," Sarah Doverspike, 22, said while working on an elaborate gray dress dotted with pink beads that she expects to spend more than 70 hours completing. "He's known for historical influences in his garments and so, basically, that's kind of what I took from him. Although he does a lot of black and whites, I put my own spin on it with colors that are more me -- pastels, gray."
Doverspike won three categories as a junior in last year's fashion show. She hopes to get a job in New York after graduation.
"I didn't know that I wanted to do fashion design when I first got here," Doverspike said of her early years at Radford. "But my mom, she had been doing costumes for a very long time, so she really inspired me to take this track. She used to make costumes for my sister's drama department, so I used to be there all the time when I was little. I learned how to sew from a really early age."
Amber Cronise, 22, also got an early start making clothes then decided to hone her skills in college.
"I made Barbie clothes when I was little," she said while hand sewing folds into the bust of her iridescent blue dress.
"I love clothing," Cronise continued. "And I love being able to take my idea of the perfect dress and make it a reality, rather than having to go shopping at 10 different stores to find it."
Her dress, which Cronise described as "really girly," is intended to look like something that could be sold by the Blumarine company. The hardest part of the assignment, Cronise said, is creating the pattern that would allow other people to reproduce her creation.
Patterns are hard to make because they require the designer to translate a three dimensional piece of clothing into two dimensions, Mitchell said.
Making patterns is something the contestants on "Project Runway" do not have to do, so in that respect the Radford students have a tougher task than the designers on the show, she said.
Another difference, said 21-year-old student Tiana Patierne, is that students cannot focus on their dresses full time like the contestants on the show.
"We have other classes, other homework, exams to study for," she said.
Patierne's floor-length gown has a plunging back and is designed with a Versace customer in mind.
"It kind of turned out looking like a wedding dress," Patierne said of her white and lavender dress. "How many hours did it take? Oh, God. I don't know. Sometimes you can work for eight hours and get absolutely nothing done -- or go backwards."
Patierne said that even basic tasks, such as cutting out fabric, take a long time when working on a couture-level garment.
"People would think that it wouldn't take that long, but it really does," she said. "You have to have things precise. It depends on what you're making, but some things have to be exactly perfect."
