An Embarkation

Last Monday was my orientation for the Master of Arts in Fashion program at Ryerson University. This is the first of such programs in Canada, and the first year this will be running. No one really knows what to expect, but I'm really looking forward to this. The orientation day was really intended to provide the 20 grad students an opportunity to get to know each other, the faculty and the staff. It was actually a lot of fun in spite of the fact that I was pretty nervous!

After the usual introductions, we were assigned groups for the activities that day (I was in the Placket Plums group), each of which had 3 students and a teacher "advisor."


The "Vintage Act" presentation consisted of a varied collection of historic and vintage garments. Each group was assigned a garment to assess, analyze, and determine a number of factors such as time period, fabric, who might have worn it, how it was made... and then create a story about it. It was an interesting and highly appropriate icebreaker - we had good fun creating a dramatic love story around our Matisse-inspired hand-painted garment.

The "Edible Fashion" activity was very "Project Runway." Each group was given $20 to spend at the Metro grocery store, where we were to buy organic and natural items (mostly food, essentially) with which to create a garment. 

We had about 2 hours for all of this, and it was fun!  My group did a take on the "Little Black Dress" - saying that "green is the new black."  We used green cabbage layered for most of the skirt, and radicchio in the centre front of the skirt and bodice. We had an asymmetrical shoulder detail constructed out of purple cabbage, some other lettuce, and radishes. Sounds horrible, right? Our dress actually looked somewhat like layered lace... and kind of pretty!  

Draping a foundation on which to glue the cabbage leaves.

Discussing the braided green onion trim.

Hastily glueing as time is running out.

Brittany glueing a lovely arrangement of radicchio.

The final product.

The range of garments was vast and exhibited great creativity. There were some food items arranged in ways that I would never have thought of, including tortilla shells rolled and stuffed with popcorn to create a ruffled collar, and a Fruit-By-The-Foot mini-skirt. Smart!  

There was a judging panel of various professors and faculty, and a group was selected as the "winners" of the activity. Some of the criteria was creativity of materials, design details, form, structure, construction... I don't know what else. 

The winning team was announced, and it was... the Placket Plums! Yay! We each received a $10 gift card to Starbucks - essential for student life. 

While each garment was very good and displayed a lot of great ideas, part of the reason we were selected was the elegance and simplicity of our dress. Sometimes less is more, remember? Silly cabbage cocktail dress. What fun.
The day closed off with a nice tour at the Royal Ontario Museum, followed by appetizers and beer at the Three Brewers, a local microbrewery. It was a long, full day, but a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to sitting in the classroom and studio with my new colleagues, and hearing all their ideas and varied viewpoints on all things fashion and beyond. 

P.S. All photos from the orientation day are available by clicking here.

Atmos Dress

The major project of my semester was designing an evening wear dress. Yup, things move pretty slowly around here - almost a whole semester for one piece! Pretty boring I guess, but for the record we were draping something different every week. Anyhow, the dress was due the day after the John James event (see previous post), which was kind of good, as it forced me to get my shit done well before the due date. You should have seen the madness of the lab that day.

6PM, if your dress was not on the rolling rack in that room before it was wheeled out of the room, you didn't get a grade, and your dress would definitely not be in the 2nd/3rd year fashion show. Seconds until that rack was rolling out the door students were frantically sewing on buttons, hammering rivets, and sewing final seams for each other. Even though my dress was done, I spent the last 10 minutes wrestling with hangers, trying to get my long dress to stay on 1 or 2 hangers, and managed to almost miss the rack! They were moving towards the door as someone finally yelled at me to get my dress on a damn rack, and I joined the handful of ladies chasing it as it wheeled out the doors. Phewf. That was close.

Well the fashion show has come and gone, I've received my marks for the dress (I did well!), and now it's time to arrange a professional photo shoot with this dress. I love it, I must say. It's another versatile piece made of this really light, gorgeous silk that moves like water. It's a halter dress, with a layering top skirt that can be tied around the waist or around the neck. The top skirt can also be tied as a dress in itself, in at least 2 different ways, so I guess you have a total of at least 5 looks built in with this baby, but actually, many more. Can you do the math? And as always, I'm taking orders! Enjoy.

Inspiration board - Satellite & Aerial Photographs of Natural and Atmospheric Phenomena.

Watercolour - one of several illustrations created of the dress.

On the runway (tied incorrectly, unfortunately).

Appliqué detail.

Down the runway at the Arcadian Court.

More photos will be posted in my forthcoming Serpentinata post.