There’s little time to waste for Jia Brown, Aaron Elliott, Nicole Robinson and other students in Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Fashion Studies program.
“I’m very excited and very anxious,” said Brown, as she was hand-sewing a piece for her resort wear collection she will debut at the Student Showcase and Fashion Show on April 24 at the SIU Student Center.
“We have to be in the studio every day at this point because it’s crunch time. But I’m excited at the same time, though,” said Brown, a senior fashion design major from Chicago.
The runway fashion show begins at 7 p.m. in Ballroom D. The student showcase, with featured works from students in fashion design and fashion merchandising specialization programs, is from 6 to 7 p.m. in the John W. Corker Lounge and Ballroom C. The program is free and open to the public.
‘Fabric grenades’
For Laura Kidd, an associate professor and fashion studies program director, the activity of six students working feverishly to each complete a six-outfit line looked like a “fabric grenade has gone off in this room.” The students feed off each other’s work and see the progress, Kidd added.
“We are about at the stage where they have different garments and are at different parts in their progress,” she said. “It’s all coming together and that’s really nice. It’s good to see.”
Brown’s collection features monochromatic colors that include vibrant yellow and orange. She transferred from Richard J. Daley College after her freshman year because of the program and on the advice of relatives who graduated from SIU Carbondale.
Brown, who has always been drawn to fashion and drawing since kindergarten, taught herself how to sew.
“It was a lot of trial and error — it was a lot of poorly made clothing,” Brown said, looking up and smiling in recalling her younger days. Her goal is to continue selling portraits and go into the fashion industry.
Aaron Elliott’s fashion line Expectations, utilizes and builds upon vintage patterns from the 1950s and 1960s to explore gender stereotypes. Elliott, who is from Herrin, said he “always been drawn to fashion.” His line explores the “expectations that are put upon women and gay men and the relationships that bond the two of them from the expectations put on them.”
Elliott’s aunt and sister graduated from the program. The balance, Elliott said, is keeping multiple outfits going at once and figuring out how to make adjustments to patterning, when needed.
“That was something I had never done in the past, and it was very important for me to learn and it’s important for everybody in the industry to learn,” he said.
In researching fashions for his showcase, Elliott said, he found an affinity for fashion research. He anticipates going to graduate school and working as a higher education fashion design instructor or possibly museum curator.
Nicole Robinson of Carbondale already has won awards with her performance outfit designs for younger dancers at a local dance studio. The creations for Robinson’s Soft Hauntings line are inspired by the visuals in the films of Tim Burton and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” but the “soft side,” she said.
Robinson, who has a fashion stylist degree from SIU, said design “has always been my passion.” She has spent many late nights in the studio working on her outfits.
“I’m excited to see what everyone has completed. I’m excited to see the creations come down the runway and how it all goes together,” Robinson said. “I see the creations piece by piece, but I want to see the complete works on the models with the hair and makeup and the accessories. It’s going to be amazing.”
Stepping up the merchandising
Anna Barber and Noah Eaton, who will present at 6 p.m. in Corker Lounge, will discuss their fashion merchandising project that focuses on restructuring the apparel department of Walmart and its private apparel lines, taking into account such factors as brand and product categories, visual merchandising and promotion. Barber’s marketing proposal is on women’s wear and Walmart’s private label Joyspun, while Eaton’s focus is with men’s clothing and its private label No Boundaries.
Siwon Cho, an associate professor in fashion studies, said Walmart was selected for this exercise because consumers’ interest in affordable fashion is increasing due to the economy and the retailer has become a great place to shop for clothing items. The company has recently updated its image and adopted new promotional strategies for its apparel private labels.
Barber, who is from Greenbrier, Arkansas, said in her research she found consumers are valuing sustainability and their interests are growing in lounge wear, so she is refining Joyspun to an organic, eco-friendly lounge wear brand. Eaton is integrating No Boundaries to a better defined streetwear brand for men who mix trendy items with classic essentials.
Barber transferred from the University of Arkansas and will graduate next month. She wants to be a fashion buyer but is presently more interested in fashion marketing, influencer marketing and social media. She has been working with several boutiques on their social media. She likes the class sizes at SIU compared with Arkansas where a class could hold 150 students, she said.
“The program at Arkansas was very, very big, and I like the smaller scale here,” she said. “It is nice coming in and having a smaller classroom. In Arkansas, it wasn’t really an option for your professors to have a good relationship with you or build networking connections because it was just so large. SIU’s size was definitely a factor that I liked here.”
Eaton, who is a junior from O’Fallon, Illinois, is a double major specialization in fashion design and fashion merchandising and will be showing a mini-line as well. Eaton added the fashion merchandising specialization, which includes a minor in marketing in the curriculum, because he wanted to have both options available after college, and he is interested in the business component within the industry.
“Eventually, I want to start my own brand so having the merchandising side and understanding the math behind things and business in general is something important for that,” he said.
The Runway Fashion Show begins with Dressed for Effect, with works from first-year designers:
- Alex Akers, Palatine, Illinois.
- Julia Dunlap, Kankakee, Illinois.
- Olivia Fry, Millington, Tennessee.
- Anna Neimeyer, St. Elmo, Illinois.
- Hieronymus Tice, Lincoln, Illinois.
Four advanced students will present fashion designs as part of mini-line Time after Time collections that highlight decades from the 1920s to 1980s:
- Noah Eaton, O’Fallon, Illinois.
- Shantell Tompkins, Mounds, Illinois.
- Chloe Antoine, Jerseyville, Illinois.
- Lennon Adams, Kappa Illinois.
Six students will present their senior designer collections:
- Jia Brown, Chicago — Pacific: resort wear inspired by the breezes and ocean waves of the tropics.
- Aaron Elliott, Herrin — Expectations: a line that explores gender stereotypes using 1950s and 1960s vintage patterns.
- Ingrid Hansen, Carbondale — Ladylike: a collection of upcycled garments for formal occasions.
- Nicole Robinson, Carbondale — Soft Hauntings: inspired by the dark side of style, blending gothic aesthetics and whimsey.
- Lisa Vasilopoulos, South Elgin — Heading West: inspired by American Western wear, using repurposed textiles and vintage fabrics.
- Niy Vaughns, Chicago Heights — Concrete: urban streetwear with a twist of preppy style and a pop of color.
More information on the fashion studies program is available at academics.siu.edu/design/fashion-design/ or 618-453-1970.
