For Immediate Release
August 14, 2006
Columbia Media Contact:
Priscilla L. Hunter, 312.344.7805
phunter@colum.edu
CHICAGO--Columbia College Chicago is proud to once again participate in the City of Chicago's second annual Fashion Focus Chicago, a citywide celebration of fashion and Chicago's dynamic fashion community, features runway shows, neighborhood shopping events, industry seminars, student designer events and much more. For 12 days, from September 20 through October 1, Chicago will be on pins and needles as the city, fashion design schools, local designers and fashion industry professionals put their best foot forward to show that Chicago is a city to be reckoned with when it comes to fashion.
Mayor Daley kicked off this year's festivities with the announcement of a Fashion Advisory Council, a group of designers and industry leaders brought together to promote the fashion industry in Chicago. The council includes Barbara Samuels, a part-time faculty member in Columbia's Fashion Retail Management program. The Fashion Advisory Council will identify ways to retain and support new and established designers in Chicago and assist design students in transitioning from school to career.
Kit LaCroix, a senior fashion design major at Columbia, is the first fashion design student invited to participate in Gen Art's Fresh Faces in Fashion, a fashion show and fashion-related art exhibition. She will design a 3-piece suit that will serves as a centerpiece to showcase accessories designed by local designers.
Kit is also the winner of ABC's 7 Chicago Runway competition in which four Chicago design students showed their best work. As a direct result of winning this competition, she was selected to design a red dress for Olympic figure skater Irina Slustkaya, as part of the American Heart Association's national 'Go Red for Women' campaign, sponsored by Macy's. On June 24th Kit met with Irina for her first fitting while she was in town participating in Champions on Ice.
The final dress was unveiled on the ABC 7 morning news on Friday, August 4, and placed in Macy's on State Street window later that day for public viewing. Irina will wear the dress to a future 'Go Red For Women' event.
In addition to Kit's contribution, Columbia faculty, staff and alumni are taking advantage of all that Fashion Focus Chicago has to offer.
On Monday, September 25 Columbia fashion design students and faculty will join their peers from The School of the Art Institute Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art and the International Academy of Design & Technology for the 'Design College'Design Challenge' from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Chicago Theatre. Students and instructors from each school will create one-of-a-kind designs from surprise materials. The students will start with a surprise 'bag of goodies' which includes fabric, trims and other surprises.
The public will be able to stop by the Chicago Theater to view different stages of the design process and watch as the designs come to fruition from sketches to pattern via draping or drafting. The final work will be a design unique to the student and the school. The final piece from each school will be on display at Macy's after the challenge.
On Wednesday, September 27 at 12 p.m., Columbia's fashion design students, and their peers, will hit the pavement once again to showcase their creative designs in Street Beat, a fashion show on State Street between Washington and Monroe. Professional models will strut on both the East and West side of State Street. Street Beat is sponsored by the Chicago Loop Alliance.
Columbia fashion design faculty members and business partners Julie Fehlerand Holly Greenhagen, along with Columbia alumna, Stacey Leatherland ('06), were selected by Macy's to showcase their work in Macy's Chicago Designer Shop.
Fehler and Greenhagen are the owners of Dame Couture, a bridal boutique that specializes in custom-made and vintage-inspired gowns. 'Each week students see just how hard a designer must work to get ahead in the fashion industry. They know that we work seven days a week designing, sewing, cutting, bookkeeping'whatever it takes. Having our company accepted into Macy's Chicago Designer Shop is not only proof that hard work pays off, but it also encourages hope in our students that they could possibly have a future in fashion right here in Chicago,' say both Julie and Holly.
Columbia alumna Staci Leatherland, the owner/designer of Mifflin, a Chicago-based clothing, jewelry and accessory company, was selected for her distinctively designed jewelry. Her line reconciles an urban/rural contrast through a subtle handmade aesthetic and uses a range of materials from hand screen-printed natural fabrics to domestic and exotic woods, mixed metals and found objects.
Virginia Heaven, director of the Fashion Columbia Study Collection will curate a fashion exhibition, From Dream to Dress that will feature Chicago-based designers. The concept will center on the process of inspiration, from idea and inception to a 3-D design. The exhibition opens on Wednesday, September 27 at Columbia's Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave., 1st Floor, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. For further information contact Virginia Heaven at 312.344.6283.
All events are free to the public unless otherwise noted. For more information, visit www.fashionfocuschicago.com or call 1.877.CHICAGO. Fashion Focus Chicago 2006 is presented by the City of Chicago in partnership with various Chicago fashion industry organizations, schools, associations and retailers.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to access, opportunity, and excellence in higher education, provides innovative practice and education in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to 11,500 students in more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded in 1890 as a communications school for women, Columbia was revisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the modern leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D., Columbia is aggressively pursuing its mission to bring a richness of vision and a multiplicity of voices to the creation of culture through the diversity of our students and graduates. For further information visit www.colum.edu.