Academy of Art Spring 2015 Womens Collections

This season, the Academy of Art Spring 2015 student runway show featured six collections at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Twelve student designers showed one menswear collection and five womenswear thesis collections graced the bright lights of the Theater venue inside the tents. Executive Director of the School of Fashion states these twelve designers have gone back to the essence of what do fashion designers should be doing – focusing on silhouettes and proportion. Something you can plainly see in these collections. Today we will be highlighting the women’s collections from Mia Jianxia Ji, Wei Bai, Madison Detro, Die Zhou, and Szu Chi Huang.

Mia Jianxia Ji

Featuring a light, all-neutral color palate, Mia got her inspiration for her layered collection from Ana Rajcevic’s “Animal: The Other Side Of Evolution” art collection, which “builds upon existing skeleton structures to create a series of sculptural pieces”. Her collection, named “SILHOUKNIT”, arouses the shapes and sentiment of Rajcevic’s work using the texture of knitted fabrics.

Wei Bai

The second collection from designer Wei Bai features tomboyish, tailored silhouettes that are evocative of the British subculture of Teddy Boy style, also known as Dandies during the Edwardian period that became popular in 1950’s. The dark and light looks are constructed in one-piece, although some give the illusion that they are separates.

Madison Detro

Unlike the other collections which features soft pastels and neutral tones, Madison Detro’s color palette featured rich, deep Merlot looks in lambskin leathers and calf suede. Intrigued by the oddities in Le Corbusier’s architectural work, Madison’s Spring 2015 collection explored geometric shapes and imbalance as a catalyst for beauty. Her designs are reminiscent of the angles found in Le Corbusier’s famous Notre Dame du Haut de Ronchamp chapel.

Die Zhou

For her Spring 2015 collection, Die Zhou was inspired by nature; not the flora but the fauna, butterflies to be exact. For her looks, she translated the lines and shapes associated with butterflies into the silhouettes of her garments, which focused around a light, fresh pastel color story in a cotton-blend twill.

Szu Chi Huang

Szu Chi Huang’s collection translates her inspiration into modern fashion by using innovative construction techniques to achieve the three-dimensional feeling of armor that has been compiled from many small pieces. Szu used origami-folding techniques on leather and wove grosgrain ribbon in mesh fabric to mimic the woven texture of the samurai garments bringing a softness to the edgy look of her collection’s inspiration. The simple black and white color palette of her collection is a nod to traditional Japanese ink paintings and calligraphy.