The students have less than a month to complete their designs now. It’s clear they’re starting to feel the pressure of the impending deadline looming before them.
The stakes are high. Thirty students are competing for five awards. The winners will have their design displayed in Neiman Marcus’s window at Tampa International Plaza, and prizes include a membership to The Dalí Museum and more than $500 worth of sewing materials.
It’s competitive just to get into the Fashion Design at The Dalí program, let alone win the design competition. Each student must complete an application and submit a portfolio. This includes students who’ve never sewn before.
“We’re looking for anyone with an eye for design,” says Denisse De Leon, school and community education manager at The Dalí. Those accepted take a 12-week fashion design course for free. Only one-third of the students accepted this year had prior sewing experience, program instructor Trish Kelley says. Kelley had only eight weeks to teach the beginners sewing and pattern making. The biggest challenge, says Kelley, is keeping all 30 student projects straight.
Each student is designing an article of clothing inspired by Dalí’s infamous dinner parties. Ten weeks in, and everyone already looks like an expert. Now they metaphorically race towards the finish line with thread, silk and specialty sheers.
Brielle Hernandez took Dalí’s “The Bather” as inspiration for her design.
“My picture is of a big toe,” she tells me. Her design, however, will not feature any big toes, because ew, gross. Instead, she took the painting’s bright pink and blue colors as inspiration for her design.
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Hernandez is gluing broken CDs to a dress made of loofah as we chat. I inch closer to the dress, but I still couldn’t recognize any traces of loofah. She had cut the blue bath sponge into strips before crocheting the strips into the dress before me.
Hernandez isn’t the only student using unconventional elements. One of the awards up for grabs is for creative use of materials. Berkeley Prep School’s Aryana Hashenian is making a skirt and top based on Dalí’s “Basket of Bread.” She is ironing images of bakeries onto the skirt during my visit. The top will be made of real wheat, she tells me.
Gibbs student Hannah Andrews made a women’s suit out of paper bags, feathers, and silk for this year’s competition. It reminds me of the beautifully outrageous designs seen at the Dunedin Fine Art Center’s annual Wearable Art event.
“I love pushing the boundaries between what is wearable and what is not,” Andrews tells me, “and then I had a little trouble. I see why clothes aren’t made of paper bags.”
Andrews’ design is based on Dalí’s “Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus.” The painting was inspired by the peasant couple in Jean-François Millet’s “The Angelus.” In Dalí’s re-interpretation, the couple is devastation set in stone. They stand with heads bowed — an artful fusion of monolith, ancient ruins and the human figure. Figures that once prayed in Millet’s “Angelus” now mourn in Dalí’s “Archaeological Reminiscence.”
The couple’s legs sprout from clusters of pointed stone towers in the sand. Andrews has referenced these narrow stone towers in her design using long, skinny black feathers. The feathers begin at model Amari Shirley’s ankles, pointing upward towards her knees. The paper bags are painted black — the color of mourning.
I never would have known they were paper bags if Andrews hadn’t told me.
Shirley stands confident before photographer Beth Reynolds. If she is afraid of tearing her outfit, she doesn’t show it.
“Last year I was wearing rock candy,” she tells me. “I was literally leaving a trail of candy as I walked.”
Gibbs design student Matthew Conte used theatrical scrim to represent the burlap Dalí painted his well-known “Self-Portrait” on. The sheer mesh is typically used in theater to achieve different lighting effects. Despite the unconventional material used, model Evelyn Platieo looks elegant in Conte’s design.
“We never put limits on what materials our students use,” says Kelley.
If the costume shop doesn’t have what they want, Kelley helps them find another source.
“Our students do a lot of thrift-store shopping,” she tells me. “The creativity just blows me away every time. They think of things I never would have thought of.”
Participants in Fashion Design at The Dalí have three opportunities to showcase their designs to the public. First, you can see Beth Reynolds’ fashion photography in The Dalí’s Raymond James Community room, where each photo is showcased with the original sketches and artist statements.
In addition to The Dalí exhibit, the program concludes with two different fashion shows. The student fashion show, at Gibbs High School, includes both a runway show and an awards ceremony.
The Neiman Marcus fashion show rings in at $50 a ticket, and all proceeds go to The Dalí Museum’s education programs. This runway show will feature both student and Neiman Marcus designs.
No matter how you see the work, see it. It’s worth it.
This article appears in Dec 6-13, 2018.