16 May 2024 |
The College for Creative Studies is reviving great, avant-garde fashion in the American heartland.
On a gray Saturday afternoon earlier this month, in an old studio where automotive commercials were once shot, models waltzed down the runway wearing everything from post-apocalyptic boiler suits with Roblox-like bags to clowncore get-ups with massive, plush buttons. This was not Paris, New York, or even London. It’s Detroit.
For the uninitiated, Detroit is known for little else than its fading automobile industry and midwestern charm. Maybe also the home of Virgin Suicides if you’re a mega Sofia Coppola fan. In 2024, the College for Creative Studies is trying to change that. The school was founded in 1906 as the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and only recently started a fashion design program in 2022 (which grew out of an accessories design program). Those industrial sewing machines that line the school’s halls? Donated by Bottega Veneta after the label showed in the city in 2021. And around the corner, sits the office of the magpie fashionable eccentric Aki Choklat, shoe designer and chair of the school’s fashion design program.
Emma Wisler, Max Honeycutt, Sarah Tombelli, Clay Barckholtz, Veronica Wardowski
The students at CCS take inspiration from a bit of everywhere, and their annual fashion show includes a selection of seniors, sophomores, and even freshmen, as well as majors outside the department. Sophomore Emma Wisler created a dress out of wood panels and hand painted watercolor silk organza, inspired by gothic architecture. Sophomore Max Honeycutt sent out dazzlingly dramatic flowing dresses that resembled deep sea creatures, made of ice dyed silks. Sarah Tombelli, who studied game design, sent forward an immersive collection of models wearing her version of what women would wear 200 years from now, inspired by her own Middle Eastern heritage and complete with talismans and a bit of performance art. “It all started with why are my clothes not working right?” she said. “ I realized my attitude about fashion had to change. Because it’s just not a thing you put on. It’s also a way to express yourself.”
In a city with such an automotive history, for some, the connection between cars and fashion was crystal clear. Clay Barckholtz’s collection titled “Running at Full Speed Without A Dent Factory Shine,” included vinyl, chrome and patent leather deconstructed and dented, inspired by his own experience with collisions. “I looked at a lot of car crashes, especially being here in Detroit, one of the biggest auto cities,” he said. “I looked at a lot of John Chamberlain sculptures and that inspired me to try to make leather look more geometric and more crushed.”
Elsewhere, Veronica Wardowski was inspired by her family’s innate connection with motorcycles through an inherently feminine lens. The result were leather jackets layered up and decorated in ornately supreme utilitarian hardware; a sea of buckles, straps and studs. “I was inspired by my nana, my mom’s mom,” she said. “She still rides to this day. She’s in her seventies, and she was always a very powerful figure throughout my entire life. The collection was based on feminine energy, feeling powerful and dominant and capable, and the freedom of hopping on a motorcycle and being able to fix it yourself too.”
Avis Kern, David Rodriguez, Gabriel Armelin
Combining upcycling with various elements of craft, Avis Kern presented a collection to the tune of total silence (to avoid creating any perception tied to music–the ultimate inspiration behind the collection). Hand blown glass bags mixed with upcycled boots made from materials from Jeep trucks combined with plush rat tails and harlequin looks. “I did zero research for my collection other than listening to music,” said the designer.
Others focused on emotion in fashion. Like David Rodriguez, who created a collection based on the Halbstarke–a subculture in Switzerland during the 1950s and 1960s which combined aesthetic elements of teddy boys and rockabilly. Rodriguez was inspired by an image of two men looking at each other intimately, taken by Karlheinz Weinberger. “That’s what made the collection go into this romantic direction, ” he said, of the fluoro neon pink fringe top he showed. Likewise, Gabriel Armelin titled his collection “In Love and Loss” and was inspired by emo culture. There was an element of beautiful decay, as jeans were ripped and reconstructed with furry textures and an inky black floor-length dress floated down the runway. “I originally wanted to leave a real pair of jeans in a field for 20 years and have them fall apart and wither,” the designer said. “But my whole collection is about love and how it changes you for good or bad. It’s the butterflies in your stomach when somebody’s around, but it’s also the tears you cry into your pillow.” Inside the tags on some of the pieces are personal love letters written by the designer.
Mamie Scholl, Cierra Headings
It makes sense that leather is on everyone’s minds. Accessory design is what birthed the apparel design program at CCS, and the students who focused on bags mixed rare creativity with craft. Like Mamie Scholl, who created mint green and silver bubble-like retro futuristic bags and boots with padding, so distinctly designed with a woman’s point of view. “I started by looking at blue collar women looking at World War II, the Rosie the Riveter era, and examining what that experience was like for them,” she said. “My conclusion was that they didn’t have the clothing that they needed. They wore men’s clothing. So I really wanted to create a collection that was comfortable and functional and didn’t sacrifice aesthetics.” Likewise, Cierra Headings made bags shaped like sea creatures in turquoise and sky blue. “I wanted to work with very non-symmetrical, weird shapes, things that symbolize fluidity,” she said.
One could try to define Detroit aesthetically as a fashion city, but the reality is that it’s so newly reinvented as an attempted fashion destination that it’s not possible yet. The mythic legends of Detroit fashion are Carhartt and Shinola, and the former is attempting to revive American fashion manufacturing with ISAIC — an apparel space offering education, apprenticeships, jobs and access to machinery for small brands. In a world where fashion sways more and more wearable and increasingly commercial, at least for now, we can count on the budding designers of Detroit to have a point of view.
