October 24, 2009

In a few short days, renowned designers, fashion educators and those from the fashion world itself will take over Drexel's campus for five days of master classes, seminars, a design showroom and, finally, an elaborate fashion show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Arts of Fashion will run from October 24th-28th and tickets are still available for this once in a lifetime opportunity to work side by side with designers who have worked for of likes of Fendi, Hermes and Levi's. A compelling Drexel storyline for the Wednesday, October 28th Fashion show is the fact that three of our Fashion Design students --Rochelle Gordon, Joanna Holmes and Milka Osoro --will have their collections competing , after they were chosen from an extremely competitive pool of 500 applicants from all over the world.

Up-and-coming U.S. designers Amy Sarabi, Julianne Thibodeaux, Chelsea Snyder and Westphal alum Jaeyoon Yeong will also have their work featured in the fashion show as part of the "Debut Series,' which affords monetary assistance for travel and expenses for collections. The "Carteblanche Series,' invites visionary fashion artists and designers who are expanding the boundaries of fashion and this year's guests include Gaspard Yurkievich from Paris and Christian Wijnants from Antwerp, Belgium.

Leading up to the fashion show will be four master classes: Fashion Surface Design within Textile, Fashion Design within Accessories, Fashion Design within Womenswear and Fashion Design within Couture. These will be taught by many distinguished teachers and designers including Tony Delcampe, Christian Wijnants, Gaspard Yurkievitch, Hermann Fankhauser, Laurent Edmond, Anthony Vaccarello, Aurore Thibout and Laurence Teillet. Aurore Thibout, a French artist, designer and performer will display her work in an exhibition in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery from October 26th through November 20th with an opening reception Saturday, October 24th at 6 PM.

In 2005, the Arts of Fashion grand prize competition was won by Westphal Fashion Design graduate student Megan Stein. Her win marked the first time a US representative won top honors at Arts of Fashion. "In the current fashion climate, international experience is a major advantage in landing a design job after school," said Megan. "Arts of Fashion provides a source of ongoing inspiration and opportunity for talented young designers." Megan currently designs clothing for Anthropologie's luxe line, "Leifsdottir,' and her recent work debuted at Nordstrom's. In 2007 the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac Award was won by Westphal graduate student Jaeyoon Yeong who recently opened his own store in New York City.

Students from over 90 design schools submitted a capstone collection of three sketches to Arts of Fashion, and a panel of fashion experts selected the competitors this past May in Los Angeles. The symposium will run from October 24th through October 28th.
For more information regarding arts of fashion at Drexel, please visit www.drexel.edu/arts-of-fashion.