Behind the designs: Q&A with designers for the FITS x SFC Fashion Show
Two of Cal Poly’s fashion clubs, the Fashion, Innovation, Trendsetting and Styling club (FITS) and the Sustainable Fashion club (SFC) host a yearly spring fashion show, in which students design set pieces, layouts and articulate their vision through pieces they design and model. This year, the show will take place on Sunday, May 17 at 5 p.m. in Chumash Auditorium. The theme is Revival.
In these conversations, two of this year’s designers shared more about their process and passion leading up to the show.
Sophia Gonzalez
Architecture junior
Cano: Roughly how many hours would you say you’ve put into your pieces this year?
Gonzalez: 20-30 hours.
Cano: When thinking of the theme, Revival, what do you draw inspiration from? What does that theme really mean to you?
Gonzalez: Really abstractly, I was thinking about architecture for some reason. I think a lot of what we do as humans are trends, and I think there was a period of time in architecture where there was designing, just for the sake of it being beautiful and ornamentation. Everything was pretty, because it made people feel good to look at something pretty. Then, we had modernism, and the death of ornamentation and everything got bland and ugly. And so I think in some very broad form, I was drawing from making things beautiful. My pieces are a lot of patterns clashing and bold colors, and I think drawing eyes and reviving beauty.
Cano: How do you plan to evoke storytelling through your pieces this year?
Gonzalez: I tried to make them cohesive. I’m only doing two people. I’m designing pieces for two people, so one is a dress and then the other is a shirt and shorts, and so I used the same fabric in most of them to try to draw it all together.
Cano: How long have you been designing clothes? Or how long have you had an interest in fashion design or fashion in general?
Gonzalez: I went to a fine arts high school, and so I was able to do the fashion show my junior and senior year there. And then I did it last year here. I’ve been designing, I’ve been making my own clothes since I was a freshman in high school. Just a lot of access to sewing machines as I was growing up.
Cano: Can you describe the feeling right before sending your models off to walk as they’re fully dressed in your design? Paint me a picture of what that moment is like.
Gonzalez: It’s very nerve-wracking, because you’re backstage the whole time, so you don’t get to see. You can peek through the door and watch them walk, but you don’t really get to see what everyone else is seeing which is kind of scary because they’re not being perceived the way you are, but it’s exciting. And I’m normally pretty proud of them, so I feel like that translates well.
Cano: What does fashion in general and designing mean to you?
Gonzalez: I really like making things with my hands. That’s a big reason why I’m in architecture, because I think it’s cool to see a design that you made really be able to touch it and hold it. So I think being able to do something completely on my own was what I wanted to do.
Blythe Haven Wilson
City and regional planning senior
Wilson in a look designed by current FITS co-president Victoria Garcia and makeup by Talia Preuss / Courtesy of Blythe Haven Wilson
Cano: Roughly how many hours would you say you’ve put into your pieces this year?
Wilson: Well, I have many more hours to come, so that’s hard to count. I’m planning to do at least 15 more hours, but I’ve put in, I want to say, at least… 20? 20.
Cano: When thinking of the theme, Revival, what do you draw inspiration from? What does that theme really mean to you?
Wilson: I’m mostly inspired by nature or natural systems. So the first thing that came to mind was just any natural cycle of revival, so a few things that are the most obvious are mold and regrowth, as well as fire and regrowth. So I went with the cycle of fire and regrowth because I thought it was the most interesting and cool.
Cano: How do you plan to evoke storytelling through your pieces this year?
Wilson: I wanted to be more subtle than yelling at you what the theme is or what the story is. I want the focus to be on the look and the feeling of the collection, and design more than anything. I have two models, and it’s a very clear duality type situation where I’m only representing two elements of the cycle. You have the most intense part, the fire, and then the new beginning. That is the two sparkliest parts of the fire cycle, the most glamorous parts, I’d say, of that cycle of death and rebirth. I literally wrote out all of the qualities of both of those stages in the cycle and tried to emulate them in the designs in terms of fire, like the intensity and darkness. And then for regrowth; youth, creativity, lightness and organic shapes. Yeah, I feel like it’s a very simple two part story.
Cano: How long have you been designing clothes or how long have you had an interest in fashion design or just fashion in general?
Wilson: Well, this is my first time actually making any clothes or designing any clothes, which is definitely scary to just jump into. I’ve always been very into fashion from a young age and grew up watching Project Runway and making intricate Halloween costumes and whatnot, and always upcycling and repurposing my clothes in strange ways. I have loved fashion my whole life, and I’m very excited to finally have pushed myself to learn how to sew.
Cano: How do you stay creative throughout the designing process?
Wilson: I haven’t honestly had issues with a lack of creativity. The biggest challenge has been a lack of time to work on it. I’m always thinking about what I want to do, and then it’s just finding the time to actually implement those ideas. Conceptually, it took a little bit of planning to kind of come up with the right words and qualities. I think that was, maybe, the hardest part; studying the elemental qualities of the cycle. The natural inspiration requires a level of research that was fun to draw from, and then as soon as I had that well of inspiration and knowledge, it’s like, everything’s just intuitive.
Cano: What do you imagine the feeling will be of seeing your models fully dressed in your design for the final time?
Wilson: It feels so far away right now, because I have so much to do, but I’m very excited about it. I think I’ll just be proud of it, because I’ve wanted to design for the show since first year, but I just have been scared to commit to it, but I’m finally committed to it and said I would do it. So, I’ll just be proud of myself for following through, and just doing something new, and, oh, I hope I like it.
Cano: What does fashion in general and designing mean to you?
Wilson: It’s the most natural form of expression, in terms of something that we do every day. There’s so much flexibility in it, because you can dress differently everyday you’re not tied down to any one identity. It’s so much more personal when you put yourself into the clothes themselves. Another level on top of styling them is to be able to make them, and to be able to make a collection as well. I don’t know the right word for it, but it’s cool.
