Get to Know: Hannah Goff
By Jaquelin Gasc
Name: Hannah Goff
Hometown: Lexington, N.C.
Year: Graduate Student
Major: Fashion Design
District: When did you decide you wanted to pursue a career in fashion?
Hannah Goff: Probably in high school. I was debating between interior design and fashion. I went to North Carolina State in the textiles program because I thought I wanted to do textile design, so that’s where I got my print inspiration from. But I decided that I didn’t really want to do just textiles, I wanted to do textiles and fashion so that’s why I came here after undergrad.
District: What was the most challenging aspect of the grad collection process?
Goff: The grad collection is a little different from the senior collection because we only get two quarters to do it instead of three and I’m an MA so I was required to do a six-piece collection but I ended up doing a 12-piece collection for Charleston Fashion Week and the MFA’s do 10. So the challenging aspect of that is just the time crunch, but I sort of spread mine out so I only took one class for that, so I think that helped. I think the challenging part is the time limit for that.
District: What are your future plans?
Goff: Ideally I would like to have my own label or fashion line, maybe do some freelance work. I’m debating between getting a full-time job because that takes up most of your time, so just seeing where it leads me right now, but ideally, yeah, having my own label eventually.
District: Do you have any advice for future grad students starting their collections?
Goff: You have to plan it out very well. You have to make sure all of your muslins are perfect the first quarter and just having a solid concept, I think, is a key. And just really love your inspiration and your idea because if you don’t love it then you’re not going to love it in the end.
District: What was your inspiration behind your collection?
Goff: It started with Cindy Sherman untitled film stills where she is dressed up like a 1950s domestic housewife and I mixed in some photographs of kitchen scenes and dirty dishes so I got domestic feminism, and I wanted to oppose that with a sort of more modern metropolitan woman. I wanted to bring that domestic feminism into the present with modern silhouettes, but I used icons like shoes and eggs, spatulas and blenders and all sorts of housewife icons in my prints, so that’s kind of the whole inspiration behind that.
District: Are there any aspects of your collection that you wish you could change?
Goff: I don’t think I’d change anything. I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I probably would just want to add-on more pieces, probably do a few more separates like tops and things like that so I could mix and match it a little bit more.
District: Who has been the most influential person when developing your collection?
Goff: I don’t think I have one person. I have a lot of people who helped me. Probably the professors, obviously, like Carol Harris was with me for both quarters that I was doing the collection so having that critique and just critiques of your classmates is very helpful because you can’t just rely on your own opinion, you have to get other people’s opinions. Also, Dean Sidaway was very helpful in the whole process as well.
District: How do you categorize your design aesthetic?
Goff: It’s very colorful and very print-driven. I also like to mix in different materials, like I used resin and latex and vinyl in my collection, which I lasercut. So I guess a “more is more” kind of thing.
District: Who would be your dream designer to work alongside?
Goff: Probably a designer who has a similar aesthetic to mine like Mary Katrantzou, Basso & Brooke, or Dries Van Noten. It would probably be really good just to see how they create their prints and how they go about their development and things like that.
District: Of your peers in the grad program, is there any one collection that you really liked?
Goff: I think we all had unique and very different styles. There’s not one that’s my favorite because I just respect all of them for doing their own thing and they’re all good in their own way.
