District talks fashion with SCAD designers II
Photos by Evyn Graefe and Danielle McGotty
With SCAD’s Fashion Show quickly approaching, SCAD District sat down with some of the senior designers in the show. Speaking about their collections, inspiration and future goals are four of the designers whose collections will be on the runway.
Yani Kiki Li cannot wait to see the fashion show on Saturday all put together. “It’s exciting and weird to see, as a designer. It’s like the pre steps,” which Li intends to take before working on starting her own brand back home in China. Li draws inspiration from her memories, especially objects and notebooks she collects and adds to. These, along with designers such as Opening Ceremony, have greatly inspired her and her style.
Molly Sayers’ who draws inspiration from designers such as Iris Vanherpen and her abstract work, feels her collection is currently very conceptualized. “I feel like the next step would be to make it really marketable and to make it something that can be worn everyday.” This Woodland, Texas native has large ideas for her work which she intends to pursue while working at companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch. She then plans to start her own company.
Casey Smith from Lafayette, Louisiana has a very patriotic style to her collection even with her intentions of eventually working in companies abroad, “places like Paris or London or Asia, somewhere different and new so [she] can grow.” After a lot of hard work, Smith is looking forward to the show and the audiences reactions to her and her colleagues work. The small details that they worked so hard on, is part of where Smith sees fashion going: “focusing on the arts and the details more than trends.”
“I wanted to capture the movement of fabric while it’s on the body, along with this whole idea of someone descending into darkness. So I guess I would describe my collection as dark,” said Jennifer Brooke Lehner from Rochester, New York. The ideas of classics such as the black in her collection is one of the directions Lehner feels the industry is moving towards and is already visible in places like Europe. After being inspired by a very hands-on internship at Marcesa she intends to eventually start her own company, where she will get the feel of her work.
