Two formats were used to present the work of Pratt’s Graduation Course this year. Three thirty -three students participated in an exhibition, while another 30 sent their work to the runway. Before that happened, Nicholas Daley, a British men’s clothing designer who marked his first decade in business, was awarded by the Visionary Award of the school by GqWill Welch.
The show with men’s clothing opened through Haeone Son, who animated staples such as shirts and pants by using a painting method that took Trompe L’Ol in a refined new direction. Details such as bags and seams are made with precision, using a Stitch Resist technique that, he wrote, “introduces subtle, unpredictable variations” that “reflect a balance between control and improvisation during the making process.” Son appropriately pulled his palette from jazz album covers. Xinjun Lu has also inspired music; Her clinical white collection contained thread stitching.
Softness was another continuous line. It appeared in the collections of Ruoshui Wang, Yunru Huang, Phobe Mang, Kylei Casmire and especially Griselda Peña Candelario, which “combined two types of substances that don’t really go together” as a kind of metaphor for the way she navigates her Mexican/American hairness. Similarly, Yalei Fang Mixed elements of the Chinese Qipao with New York Vibes from the 90s.
Switching to subcultures, one of the principles of Georgia James was Kibbo Kift, an co -ed group of people focused on nature and handicrafts that formed in the countryside of England in 1920. Inspired by their gowns, James said that she used fairly simple shapes to make interesting silhouettes, and kept things “green” by using natural fibers and making cyanotype prints. Christian Lee challenged the elitarianism of fashion by using outsider art, while Joy Qiu’s I’m a Punk Bunny collection was intended to show the many facets that a person can have, from cute to creepy.
From there it was not a jump to character dressing, that is how Jihae Heidi du approached her collection and opened it with her interpretation of ‘Drama Yoshiko’, a female spy. Xin Gu, on the other hand, dived from his real experience with autistic individuals, and skewed silhouettes in unexpected ways such as, he wrote, an act of ‘calm resistance-it visible of the often unseen costs of making’ fit in ‘. Under the Jock and the Homecoming Queen, Weisberg is represented by the child who wears anti-panting shorts, ie shorts who have already been pulled down and do the work of bullying heads for them. “I wanted to bring this story to life and also just be humorous because I don’t think there is enough [of that,]”He said.