TCD at Sheldon College Night -

17 Mar 2009    

Tacia Booton's evening wear featured front and center in Sheldon's Great Hall

Twenty-two TCD graduate and undergraduate apparel design students presented their works in a runway show at the Sheldon Museum of Art’s College Night on Tuesday March 10. The garments were the output of several TCD courses including 403/803 Draping, 416/816 Line Development, 471/871 Experimental Apparel, and 472/872 Inventing the Crafted Fabric.

The garments featured in Sheldon’s Great Hall pushed conventional ideas about dress and explored the multiple meanings of black as an iconic color and apparel form. By exploring garment structure the designers spotlighted the body and brought awareness to the garments’ aesthetic and sculptural qualities. Students addressed ideas of power, isolation, rebellion and restriction in their creations. In addition to the black garments, the models also presented a group of sustainable garments as well as a group that expressed issues and aspirations related to women in society.

A full house SRO crowd greeted TCD's designers and their models at Sheldon College Night

The current 471/871 and 472/872 collaborative courses are being taught by Dr, Barbara Trout and by visiting lecturer Judith James, respectively. Conceived to bring together surface design elaborations with garment design and construction, the pairing of the courses is in its second iteration. As the collaboration matures TCD looks forward to the development of more innovative approaches to fabric design and its application to the experimental form.

Alison Goding's confining riff on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel The Yellow Wallpaper

Sustainable garment collaborations by Line Develpment students who were required to invest less than $20. in their garments, and to use only recycled fabrics.

TCD's biennial student runway show will reprise some of these garments and many more in April 2010 when students return to the ballroom of Nebraska Union for the much anticipated show, last presented in 2008.