Bringing bold shapes to life through fashion

05.2014Design, Ideas

By Monika Gibson

Monika Gibson and Leah Patgorski decided last winter to work together on a collection for Carnegie Mellon University’s Spirit Fashion Show. Monika’s work had been selected for the event in previous years, and though Leah had not done a fashion show before, she was interested in applying her perspective as an artist to wearable clothing. With the show’s given theme of “Prima Facie” (“First Impressions”), the two decided to focus on strong shapes and layers rather than color.

Being colleagues at Strada made it easy to share ideas, materials, and sketches over multiple lunch hours. To construct the pieces, however, the two worked in their individual home studios, creating vivid silhouettes of black, white, and gray that extended to the geometry of headpieces worn by the models.

Here is a glimpse of some of their inspiration and a few more photos from the show, which took place in April.

Inspiration (Clothes from Maison Margiela and Comme des Garcons, ink drawings by Dutch artist Louis Reith, excerpts from design sketches, text drawing by Carl Andre)

Top photo: Anna Lee-Fields