Couture In Context at Auburn University

How do you express your identity? As the 3-D Design for Fine Art and Graphic Design class is learning, fashion serves as a universal form of speech. It is cross-cultural and expresses a person's uniqueness, status and even gender.

A visiting artist served as the professor of the class for three weeks. She wanted the students to explore how form and recycled materials support a conceptual vision and can eventually be transformed into a couture piece. The students divided into groups of two to three people and began brainstorming. Other artists the professor encouraged the students to study consisted of Yinka Shonibare, Mimi Smith, Cat Chow, Nick Cave and Cheryl Yun.

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Sophomore Bethany Whitehead of Birmingham, Ala., and junior Courtney Crew of Chicago accepted the challenge and brought their pencil-drawn sketchbook to life through their one-of-a-kind dress. They used materials such as plastic, ribbon, thread and coke tabs. Though it would seem the most conventional to use material such as chicken wire to build the form of the dress, the team of two was faced to find another option because that material was physically unavailable. Instead they used air conditioning vents.

"We started with the concept of girls wanting to show what they look like to [the standards of] what other people expect them to look like," Whitehead explained.

Crew and Whitehead emphasized a woman's hips and other curves by shaping the form to fit the image of an "ideal" woman.

"We also threw in some color, ribbon and thread to maintain feminine quality that our project had in the woman's figure to go in high contrast with the wire we were using to create this rigid form of a body," Whitehead continued.

With the colors, Crew explained that they chose oranges and reds to signify lust and passion while, once again, continuing to maintain the feminine quality.

To express the conformity of women, Crew and Whitehead ensured that the inside of the form was tattered and chaotic. The thread and other materials were trimmed abruptly. Through this, the students intended to convey how a human being can look so clean and put together on the outside, but when one looks at the core of his or her soul, the observer finds brokenness and chaos.

By completing this project, the two students focused on portraying this truth: "Female identity is found in more than a curvy figure or sexual appeal, but so many girls find themselves applying that identity to their life because it is what they are 'supposed' to do."