A local storeowner and some VCU fashion design students had a unique opportunity this semester.
Charles Brown, the owner of campus-based clothing store Urban Traders formed a partnership with VCU professor Linda Lee’s fashion illustration class allowing the students to showcase their work while also getting some notable exposure for his store.
The collaboration started out simply.
“Professor Lee just happened to walk in here one day and she was admiring the store,” Brown said. “We started talking. When she said fashion design that just struck a bell in my head and I said, ‘First of all welcome to VCU. If there’s any kind of project or collaboration that Urban Traders and the VCU Fashion Department could work together on, just let me know.'”
Lee’s idea was a hip-hop based concept that would allow students to get some real world experience designing their own line of clothing for a specific retail outlet.
The students were instructed to visit the store and find inspiration from specific pieces and incorporate these ideas into their own designs.
For students like Rebecca Marks, a junior from professor Lee’s class, this was a new experience and a bit strange at first.
“It was different for me because I’ve never gone into a store and been told to take something from that store,” Marks said. “Usually we have to think of things on our own.”
Marks said that this was experience gave her insight into designing in the real world.
“When we go into the industry that’s really what it’s all about,” she said. “I just kind of got ideas and I tried to take things that I wasn’t normally used to designing. My inspiration was mostly the accessories.
This was also senior Zachery McGee’s first attempt at designing for a specific client.
“It was different because you actually had someone who was going to weigh in on what you did,” McGee said. “It was more of a challenge because you had to not only consider what you like but also (the client) as well.”
McGee said Lee made sure that the students considered more than just aesthetics when designing the clothes.
“She definitely puts an emphasis on fabrics and how it moves,” McGee said. “With the project that we did I really thought a lot about how the clothing would move on someone who was dancing. It couldn’t be skintight but at the same time someone who was wearing it might want it to be sexy but still be able to dance.”
After putting their concepts together, the students narrowed down their ideas to three drawings. They then had to create a pitch using three boards as visual aids.
“We had a mood board, a flat and a fabric board, and then we had our three drawings,” McGee said.
“The mood board is kind of your inspiration,” McGee said. “It conveys what you want your line to say, what you want your clothing to say.
“From there we also had to do the flats. Flats,” McGee said, “are when you actually take the clothing and draw them as you would see them everyday, without someone wearing them. It’s so you can see the fine detail.”
“We also had a fabric board,” McGee said, “…so they know whether they like the material or whether it’s too heavy. We usually do basic 3 x 3 squares and they can get the basic feel of it and pull it if they need to, to see how it stretches and moves.”
After watching the student’s presentations Lee and Brown had to choose the best pieces, which Brown would display in his store for three weeks.
Brown said that the drawings got a lot of attention while on display.
“People wanted to buy some of the drawings,” Brown said, “and I said ‘No they aren’t for sale.’ I thought all the works were great. I know they had to put a lot of time and energy and their minds to work.”
McGee, who had two of his drawings selected, was excited about the exhibit.
“To have that opportunity to display it in the store,” McGee said, “we thought it was a big deal. Someone finally got to see our work outside of it being in the fashion department. I think that on some level we got a better understanding of what it is to run a store,”
Learning how to adopt ideas made an impression on Marks.
“I think that we’ve gotten a better grasp of how fashion works as it sifts down through the different levels money wise,” she said, “because usually it starts out at the designer level which is really, really expensive and very few people can afford it and then what happens is you alter it to make it more cost efficient.”
Even Brown was able to learn something new from the experience. He has been in the merchandising part of the business for 25 years but has had little experience with the design aspect.
“I learned how fashion goes from telling someone, to them putting it on paper and then you can go to them and say ‘Hmm that’s interesting, can you do this or do that?'” he said. “So I learned if Urban Traders ever wanted to put out their own line, how to start it and find the right people – the bright people.”
McGee is appreciative of the efforts his professor put into the project.
“I think Ms. Lee has definitely brought something different,” he said. “A different level of style and a different level of desire as far as our work is concerned, and I think she brings a realistic view of what can be expected in the industry.”