“There was no theme that senior students could respond to; it’s all about their individual voice.” This is what Gwen van den Eijnde, associate professor and department head of clothing design at RISD, said about the class of 2024 final projects. Apart from the freedoms, a large number of the students’ thesis statements showed that they are both sensitive to the chaos in the world and resistant are against authority. Gene Suh thrives on disorder; his deconstructed work retains a kinetic energy. Hasti Hosseini abandons restraint and creates body-revealing ivory knits, while Ace Yin looks back at her conservative religious upbringing through a soft-focus lens in an attempt to properly transform sadness into joy. “A blurry crucifix is a star,” she writes.
The boundary between ‘the monastic and the masochistic’ is the preoccupation of Abraham Hsu, who called his all-black collection of cults cults cults. The restraint of his soft, shaded dress contrasted with the surprising wantonness of another number that, when the model turned around, revealed her back and rear through strappy straps. Glory Lee’s gentle exploration of corporate attire, meanwhile, is more SFW.
Anya Norstrom leans into the glitch, via clothing designed using technology that still maintains a sense of hand, especially a crushed dress in bright pink. Like Nordstrom, Sue Sima uses the CLO program, which enables 3D design. Her own pole dancing forms the basis for a harness-inspired collection with futuristic accents. In the science fiction story constructed by Sofia Zhuk-Vasilyeva, the beetles are revolutionaries and a force of good in a world gone mad. The moral might be that humor can temper dystopia.
People, rather than insect characters, and the subject of uniforms, fuel the stories of Fiona Frohnapfel and Kailin Hartley. The first imagines its protagonists living in a seaside resort. Their not-quite-what-they-seem clothes, including a draped and quilted striped shirt dress or sweater with attached scarf, are propositions that add personality to a wardrobe. Hartley’s collection is built around a self-written film script. A group of green-striped ’60s-style A-line dresses spell out ‘please’; others contain scenes from Swedish erotic film; I am curious (yellow).
Henry Hawk’s thesis is built around denim, a universal uniform. Hawks focuses on what he calls the “1800s and 1800s patent era” and works from a pattern book from that era. He uses upcycled denim and canvas as materials, and creates his pieces using 100-year-old Singer sewing machines. By reviving and reinterpreting details from the past, Hawk strives to strike an “elegant balance between ornamentation and functionality.” Look for him to explore that theme further as a participant in the Supima Design Competition.
Yiyi Wan’s Funeral Poem II collection includes a draped hooded ‘shroud’ dress with cloud-like quality and a ‘fur’ jacket and shoes made from shredded linen, but the pièce de résistance is a veiled dress with an apron-like construction over a pleated skirt decorated with a black rose. As easy on the eyes as her clothes are, she is also purposeful. In her artist statement, Wan, who recently lost her grandfather, explains that “death remains a taboo subject” in the Chinese cultural tradition in which she grew up. In exploring her own grief, she aims to use her creative work as a means to provide comfort and catharsis to others in mourning.
The belief that creativity can change the world is a beautiful feeling, shared by all students. Ethan Hoskins discovered while studying clothing design that he wanted to paint. His abstract expressionist self-portraits, executed on Styrofoam, explore his chosen themes of ‘visibility, value, transformation and identity’. The paintings remind you of the importance of following your heart.
