Brief - Adam Drizen:

A cylinder dress that explores the impact of social media through the use of icons and logos. Inspired by #TAG Street Art, the dress progressively expands representing how as the population grows, individuals become more entangled in social media. 

As the centuries have turned, social media has swallowed the population. Many are found putting on a facade or being two-faced. Currently, 80% of the U.S population has a profile on at least one social media platform and spends over three hours a day on these platforms. As people become obsessed with communicating through photos and videos, they don't realize that they are withdrawing from social interactions in person and the harmful effect this has on society. Many would expect social interactions to grow, but as the population increases, so do social media users. The dress is an abstract way of showing a significant issue regarding our country today.

Brief - Zoe Falkson:

The Time Cape: A large, cylindrical cape that represents social media’s effect on in-person socializing. Made from several pieces of laser-cut wood and fabric, the social media icons on the cape resemble a hombre compactness.

While social media makes it possible to interact with people from all across the globe, this advancement in technology inhibits face-to-face socialization. The goal of the Time Cape is to represent and inform the public of this dilemma by contrasting the precipitous rise in social media with the sudden downfall in social interaction, specifically among millennials and post-millennials.

The Time Cape is constructed from several pieces of circularly shaped wood to form the exponential shape of the cape to mimic the rise in social media. In contrast, the pattern of the social media icons becomes sparser toward the bottom of the cape, to represent the decrease in social interaction. The hope is that when millennial and post-millennials see this cape, they will recognize the negative impact social media platforms have on interaction in the real world.

Beatrix's Brief

Pigeons.: a wearable sculpture that takes inspiration from a Central Square mural by Felipe Ortiz, and explores the perceptions of nature and urbanity by using pigeons as a primary example. Pigeons. is made of feather “fans”, with an outside brick-colored feather to represent urbanity that pans out to reveal differently colored feathers with unique textures to represent the wonder, beauty and nature found when you look below the surface of the city. This project exists to change people’s views on the merging of nature and urbanity: every “front feather” is monotone and dull, but when someone looks closer by opening the fans, they will see the beautiful and different patterns. By training them to look closer to find real beauty, they will go out to the city and look closer at pigeons and urbanity to discover the beauty and nature behind it.

In this project, my partner and I chose two main patterns. The “front feathers” are all the same: brick-colored spray painted feathers. The other category, “unique feathers,” has four different patterns embedded in a wooden feather-shaped frame: lace, blue fabric, gold mesh, and mirrored acrylic, designed to reflect the color palette shown in the mural. Each front feather has two random unique feathers beneath it— for example, blue and lace, or gold and acrylic. They are attached with a screw that allows the feathers to fan out but keep their shape, and are connected to a felt harness worn on the thigh.

Brief - Rosa Boehm

Frilled Lizard Harness  - A wearable design based on the Frill Lizard's defense mechanism and the Diurnal Mural of a gecko on Garden St. This piece is meant to draw attention to fear and show when the person is feeling this based on how the scales react to their emotion. 

The Frilled Lizard Neckpiece is a fashion wearable designed to mimic the defense mechanism of the Frilled Lizard, which pops up its frill when it feels threatened. The lizard's frill is a circular flab of skin behind the neck that pops up to frame the head and create a larger more menacing appearance. The neckpiece adapts this mechanism for humans: the model can move the wooden scales used to imitate the frill by having the model fold his or her arms towards themselves. One way that this could be incorporated into society is if someone needs help communicating his or her emotions to others. Instead of verbally communicating, they would be able to visually communicate through this design. Our hope is to help people visualize how much we have in common with other creatures even as remote from us as a frilled lizard, and how we can learn from them. 

The staircase of feminine empowerment: Based on a Lena McCarthy street mural named 

Sallie-  "Power",  this wearable sculpture explores the progress of female empowerment and the oppression that continues to stunt the growth of that power. Composed of over 20 moving steps made out of plywood and Rolex paper, this material speaks to the difficult steps that women have taken. 

The staircase of feminine empowerment is inspired by 'Power,' a Central Square mural by Lena McCarthy that represents, as she quotes,  "what feminine power would look like." She does this through portraying thriving plants and flowers in many vibrant colors that take the spotlight. The natural symbols are meant to portray the life and growth of feminine power. The wearable sculpture staircase of feminine empowerment compliments this message by demonstrating the challenge of overcoming long-lasting oppression to strive for equal opportunity, dignity, and empowerment. Past difficulties and reversals are embodied within the spiral shape of these steps which vary in size, and their movement which allows them to fall slanted. This simulates how many efforts in the past have been difficult and dwindled through the fallen staircase. Steps are attached to a flexible wire that supports the frame of the staircase and allows it to extend above the model's head, to show that this fight for full equality is not over.

Maddie's Brief:

Gateway to Spring: A garment designed to show the possibility of renewal, symbolized by the life cycle of a cherry blossom. The dress is made up of dozens of felt cherry blossoms that fall off as the model walks the runway, representing the short life cycle of the flowers and their renewal every spring.

Gateway to Spring was inspired by Lena McCarthy's mural 'Power', which is blooming with nature and the growing and coming of spring. Our garment challenges people to think about how things don't last, but also about how loss is a stage of renewal. Fully bloomed cherry blossoms made of felt are sewn on to strings that are sewn together on the back of the belt to create a train of flowers. As the model comes into view, the flowers appear freshly in bloom, but as she turns her back and exits, the flowers appear to begin to fall off the dress. A white piece of fabric unrolls from the belt to cover the flowers while releasing paper petals that were wrapped in its folds and fall to the ground. Ideally worn in the springtime, the train will remind people of the quick coming and going of cherry blossoms, heralding a new season.

Roisin's Brief:

A detachable dress train designed to represent renewal in life and in nature through cherry blossoms. The model wearing the dress will pull a string to cover the train of cherry blossoms as she walks down the runway, to represent renewal and the circle of life. Our piece is made up of a long train that can be ripped off that shows life and death.

Renewal is a fresh start, it's a new time for humans and for nature. The circle of life is represented in this piece. The dress is inspired by a Lena McCarthy mural in Central Square, called Power. Within the mural it has lots of plants and living elements throughout it. In the center of the mural, there is a heart with leaves growing out through the painting symbolizing growth and renewal. The mural captures power and feminity as well. On the piece, we wanted to emulate the life cycle of cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms bloom at the beginning of spring, representing the renewal of life after the winter, and represent a new season and a new time. The petals fall off the trees soon after they are pollinated and soon after the petals fly off the tree. The cherry blossoms are placed on out garment on multiple strings to create the look of a long train. Each cherry blossom is made out of laser cut felt. When you look at the dress the flowers are the biggest at the top and the smallest at the bottom to show growth, dress The model as she walks down the runway will hide the flowers to show the cherry blossoms dying.

Hurricane Dress: a wearable sculpture inspired by the shape of a hurricane. While the top and bottom of the design is busy, layered and mobile, the center of the garment acts as the eye of the storm and stays still, calm and stiff. 

Based on the mural Transcend painted by Cedric Douglas and Julia Roth, the main idea we explored in our wearable is calm in chaos. We saw this juxtaposition in the mural through the use of a vibrant, colorful, geometric pattern contrasted by a still, realistic black and white portrait of a woman's eyes. To us, the pattern seemed animated and moveable while the woman's eyes seemed calm and static, which caused us to think about how movement and stillness can play off each other. With this idea leading us, we began looking at hurricanes because they clearly displayed the idea we wanted to convey through our work. This is because hurricanes have a still center known as "the eye" located right in the middle of all the craziness. This inspired us to create a wearable sculpture that includes hurricane shaped layers on the top and bottom of the outfit and a rigid corset in the center to represent the calm eye of the storm. The Hurricane Dress displays that sometimes opposites can complement each other perfectly and make something beautiful.