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University Fashion Design Student Organization hosts senior preview ahead of May showing | Arts & Life

University Fashion Design Student Organization hosts senior preview ahead of May showing | Arts & Life

In the festival hall area of the Patterson-Appleton Art Center, garments sway slowly in display on their mannequins and classical music plays in the background. While the university’s fashion design senior showcase normally occurs in May, the Fashion Design Student Organization wanted to try something different in showcasing its seniors’ designs for the school year.

On Sept. 6, FDSO held a preview at the center, hosted by the Greater Denton Arts Council, to showcase the works that fashion design seniors have created in past assignments. 

“By the time we are going up to our fourth year, we’ve created a lot of garments that are not meant to be seen a majority of the time,” Dominique Hawkins, FDSO president and fashion design major said. “With the organization, we want to start putting those viewpoints of everybody’s garments out there.”

Hawkins said the theme of this year’s senior preview is based on the movie franchise  “Night at the Museum” (2006) and was chosen because the title had a broad concept.

“‘Night [at] the Museum’ is [that movie where] historical artifacts come to life,” Hawkins said. “So, for our instances, these are garments that we’ve created in our past years in the program and they are our historical artifacts that are coming to life being showcased to other people.”

Jess Green, GDAC education curator and university alumna, said that university professor and alumna Barbara Trippeer contacted her after GDAC held a fashion-related event the previous year.

“So Barbara Trippeer, the head of the fashion design department at UNT, reached out to me at the beginning of this year,” Green said. “We just talked about ways we can partner more because we’re looking to celebrate all art forms in this building and I feel like fashion is something we’ve been missing previously.”

 On the wall, a video of the class of 2024’s showcase plays, and Hawkins said this video will change to the previous year’s showcase every year the senior preview is held. Hawkins said this highlights the differences each year in the fashion industry.

“We’re doing classical music because the theme is ‘Night at the Museum’ [and] it’s a very classical renaissance-like feeling,” Green said.

One garment furthest from the entrance is a solid black asymmetrical dress with rope material around its waist. The dress reveals a heart sectioned into different colors in an opening with buttons on the chest area. Fashion design major and senior Phat Nguyen said the act “of coming out of the closet” inspired him to create the piece.

“The whole dress is based on internal thoughts of the coming out process,” Nguyen said. “And then it goes up to where you open it out to a heart of rainbow pride, freedom and all that.”

A traditional maroon-colored suit with small gold rhinestones and a gold zipper is a different garment on display. 21-year-old fashion design major Quinton Patten said this suit is his take on modern streetwear.

“I was thinking like a red carpet and that’s why you see a lot of gold and black,” Patten said. “It’s fully wool and there’s linen on the inside.”

22-year-old fashion designer major Jennifer Velazquez utilized her skills acquired from metalsmith classes and created a two-piece outfit. The top is a black short-length top with chains dangling from the bottom onto the black skirt beneath it. However, the chains from the top are not connected physically to the bottom.

“It’s a 15-pound jacket,” Velazquez said. “The chains are removable so if you really want to, you can take it off.”

21-year-old fashion design major Script Condron named her garment “Bard of the Future” and said it stems from Henry Austin Dobson’s poem On The Future Of Poetry.”

“Austin Dobson is my favorite poet,” Condron said. “When I was looking for inspiration, I knew I wanted to do something based off of Austin Dobson.”

The garment is a skirt-suit combo with green asparagus, faded red and tan colors. The red and green make a floral design and the tan provides a background.

“This was accepted into the International Textile and Apparel Association and it’s going to be shown off at their conference this November,” Condron said.

Hawkins’ piece consists of denim pants and a denim shirt. Two yellow and red openings are over the knee area of the pants and two on the shirt. Hawkins said the piece is titled “A Child Within an Adult” and said the outfit is a play on her childhood.

“It’s like different shows that you would watch as a child but putting it into an adult silhouette and knowing that the child you were growing up helps you build on your foundation,”  Hawkins said.

Hawkins added that this is the FDSO’s second year of being active and the organization aims to host a junior preview with the GDAC in October.

“The end goal is making your garment and seeing what you created, the aesthetic, that’s like the prize pick and we want to give the opportunity to those designers to feel that in this place,” Hawkins said.

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