SERVitecture served once again through their annual Fashion Schau runway last Friday, transforming the Knowlton School of Architecture into an atmosphere like no other.
This year’s theme, coordinated by Natalia Lopes, Brylee Dixon and Cara DeBrosse, isis “ELEMENTAL." It explores what’s fundamental, raw and essential, referring to the primal forces of nature and how we experience them.
Featuring eight designers, the show offered a striking range of interpretations. Some collections focused on thrifting and reusing, whereas others started from scratch to lean into their vision. The result was a runway that felt like a conversation between what it means to return to the basics and original forces that make up our world.
Let’s take a look at the designers and some of their work for the show. Photos are taken by Madeleine Veilleux.
Lily Jiang, a first-year in psychology, worked off of the materials she was able to find and decided to design her outfits around snow and roses. She incorporated tablecloths and various fabrics to create her pieces.
“Rose in the snow is a saying that [people] say when there is adversity and toughness. But in the midst of that you can always find hope, so with the materials I had led me in that kind of direction,” Jiang said.
Cara DeBrosse, a fourth-year in architecture, relied on rain and rainbows to create her design.
“I took inspiration, one from my model because she really likes rainbows and bright sunny days, so I intentionally sought out sparkly materials,” DeBrosse said. “I found this material on etsy; it's an iridescent tool, that was kind of the inspiration, so I was going off rainbow, vapor, mist sort of inspired idea. The hat represents water droplets, the dress represents flowing air [and] vapor.
I think that doing nature-inspired designs is a great way to raise awareness about our environment, and the idea of reusing materials is another play on the sustainability aspect, like reusing fabric, no waste made. Nature is a great inspiration in general for fashion since it's so organic and beautiful.”
Kelly Bruce, a second-year in landscape architecture, is most drawn to water, and used that as a starting point to develop her design.
“I used a lot of thrifted material. I used the stuff from the clothing drive as well as some materials I found at Common Hall and some thrifted pieces, and I think the hardest part of it was finding pieces that would really fit together and form a cohesive outfit and one that really matched my idea for the design,” Bruce said.
Francis Beam, a first-year in landscape architecture, took the theme in a unique direction.
“I took ‘Elemental’ to mean the elements of the periodic table, so I was sort of going with aluminum as my element,” Beam said. “But the idea was, ‘What if I recycled a bunch of cans and made a dress?’”
He said that his biggest challenge that he encountered was material-based — how does one use metal cans and keep it safe for the model to wear?
“In my original concept I was going to cut the cans into flat sheets, and I assumed you would be able to work with it in flat sheets like you would with traditional fabric, which is not true because the cans really want to go back to their original shape,” Beam said. “Instead of treating it as a replacement for fabric, understanding it as its own material, and [using] it in three different ways in order to use the entire can because it is a unique shape in addition to a unique material.”
What stood out most in the show was how cohesive it felt despite its diversity. Each collection had its own story, yet together they formed a coordinated rhythm that kept the audience engaged.
SERVitecture’s Fashion Schau continues to push beyond expectations, not just as a fashion event, but as an exploration between ideas and style.
