On the catwalk
Lindsay Sakraida watches SAIC’s young design students unfurl their creations
To most people, Friday is a relatively calm day because it signifies the end of the work week. But for the students of the fashion design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the day is anything but calm.
All in one room, students are cutting, sewing, altering and generally trying not to let anxiety get the best of them. An intern is steaming a tuxedo jacket while a stunning model, Erin Endicott, towers above them all in a gun-metal colored, silver woven top and pinstripe pants. The air is coated in a flowery perfume and various fabrics, including pink tulle, are strewn about the tables, along with bottles of orange juice designated in black permanent marker for the “models.”
“You should have been here yesterday when we were fitting the male models,” jokes Sarah Isenhart, a sophomore.
The students are preparing for “Fashion 2004,” the annual spring fashion show that will display the work of sophomore, junior and senior fashion design students to an audience of family, peers and industry professionals. Today they are fitting their garments onto a live model to be sure the proportions are correct, and with the show quickly approaching, the atmosphere is hectic. Most students say they’ll be working the entire weekend in order to finish on time.
“We live in this department,” says Maja Haraslie, a senior. “It’s funny when people ask me if I enjoy living downtown, because I tell them I never get out.”
Endicott slips on a Day-Glo striped yellow and black evening gown with large puffed sleeves. The designer, sophomore Matthew Lanci, wears a tape measure and green scarf around his neck as he smoothes out the garment. If the blinding color wasn’t enough of a statement, Lanci announces that the dress is still missing something.
“There’s this insane jacket that looks like I was on LSD when I designed it,” Lanci says to the crew as he pulls out a brown and green vinyl jacket with a detachable, glittering batwing sleeve. “Oh yeah,” he jokes, “I was.”
Once Endicott puts on the jacket, the designers grow concerned about whether she can walk without catching the heel of her shoe on the bottom of the dress. She takes it for a test run and walks several paces away from them. But she doesn’t just walk — she does the model strut. At the end of her imaginary catwalk, she pauses, turns 90 degrees, thrusts one hip out, and tosses her hair. Lanci smiles giddily as he looks upon his fully realized creation that now hangs on Endicott’s slender figure.
“When you hire a professional model, you’re working with a standard, which is what the fashion business is all about,” says the department chairwoman, Andrea Reynders, about the benefits of using experienced models like Endicott. “We bring it up to a level that becomes very professional and it costs a little bit more money but it’s part of (the students’) learning process. I think it helps them prepare for a point in the real world when they’re going to have to deal with real models — they know how to talk to them, how to fit them, and how to behave around them.”
Endicott looks more like a doll than a person as her porcelain face stares dreamily into a mirror. She’s now wearing a brightly colored minidress by sophomore Emily Kroll, a textile aficionado, who uses several layers of soft fluid materials in slightly different shades of orange and red. Someone announces that the outfit is reminiscent of Gary Graham, and the fashion show coordinator, Daniela Ortiz, who is overseeing the fittings, leans in and whispers that Graham is a former student of the school who now sells his “deconstructive” style of clothing in prestigious stores such as Robin Richman — a store in Chicago that features several local designers — and the illustrious Fred Segal’s in Hollywood.
The school has many successful graduates such as Graham, but few remain in Chicago because the city doesn’t have the resources to sustain “haute couture” design, or custom made, high quality fashion, that typical “fashion capitals” — New York, Paris and Milan — are known for.
“It’s very unfortunate because we’re producing some really incredible designers in (Chicago) but they have nowhere to go here,” Reynders laments. “Some stay here and sell their garments all over the country and internationally, but they are few and far between. The reason why Chicago doesn’t have success in that area is that we don’t have the industry to support the designers.”
The “industry” that Reynders speaks of consists of several elements: First and foremost, a designer must have access to materials such as fabrics, zippers, buttons and other notions. To mass produce garments, it is ideal for a designer to use a manufacturer or some other form of hired labor to help with everything from pattern making to pressing. After clothes are made, they need to be marketed to department stores. All of this constitutes a fashion system that Reynders says is “very small and slight in Chicago.”
Still, some say it’s possible to be a designer in Chicago. Despite its inferiority complex when it comes to the Big Apple, the Windy City offers many fashion enthusiasts an invitingly different work environment.
“It’s a bit more wide open here,” says Shane Gabier, a faculty member at the Art Institute’s fashion department and an independent designer in Chicago. “I think you feel less pressure here to conform to anything.”
Reynders says she agrees with Gabier, going so far as to call Chicago more humane. “Chicago is more down-to-earth and produces a more realistic point of view,” she says. “There’s something about New York that sparks all of your senses. It’s wonderful, but the question is if one would want to live in New York and remain at that (fast) pace.”
The fashion department proves it’s not impossible to design in Chicago, as many students have used the city to find the various fabrics for their garments for the show. Kroll was able to find all the constructs for a gold chain mail belt she designed to accompany her dress. Once on Endicott, the belt makes the entire ensemble reminiscent of the disco dancing 1970s, something Kroll said she was striving to replicate.
But there’s a problem. The shoulder isn’t quite fitting and Nick Cave, a faculty member helping with the fittings, has already poked Endicott in the arm.
Both students and faculty swarm around the dress to adjust the shoulder straps, as Endicott self-consciously holds up the front to prevent exposing herself to the crew. After several minutes of fussing and adjusting, its time to move on to the next student, so a frustrated Kroll takes her dress into another room for alterations.
The overall costs for the outfits can be large and money for the materials comes straight out of the students’ pockets. Some have spent as much as $600 on fabric. Although this price can be daunting, Isenhart says, in the end, the final product is what matters.
“When you’re making something, it doesn’t really matter if it costs 60 dollars a yard,” Isenhart says. “It’s what works and you want it to be right if you’re going to put a lot of time into it.”
With such hefty expenditures, many students place their pieces in the garment sale which takes place a week later in an attempt to compensate for the astronomical costs. However, there are some who are not so ready to part with a piece they have worked on for several months.
“I’m not sure (if I’ll sell my outfit) because it’s my first major thing that I’ve made,” Isenhart says. “I’m scared but obviously at some point you have to sell stuff. Maybe next year.”
Although not all students will sell their pieces, there will be plenty of exceptional garments to choose from that can’t be found anywhere else. Prices will most likely be higher than the typical Gap T-shirt, but Reynders says that the cost is reasonable considering the level of workmanship.
“They’re one-of-a-kind garments, and they’re just as good
as couture but they don’t have a (famous) name behind it,” Reynders says before adding optimistically, “Well, not yet, at least.”
