• Photo courtesy of Kristen DePalmo
• Half of Kristen DePalmo's garments await public display.

“You do not ‘like that one,'” a sign in North Carolina State University’s Leazar studio sternly admonishes inquisitive visitors who might want to express appreciation for a design piece. Across campus at the College of Textiles, the same sentiment prevails during class critiques of the Senior Fashion Collection Studio.

“You can’t use the word ‘like’,” Cynthia Istook, associate professor of textile and apparel management and senior studio teacher, said. Instead, class members can make suggestions about changing a piece, and the designer can choose whether or not to implement them. “It’s interesting to see how it impacts the designers.”

The College of Textiles senior studio class began in spring 2007. It’s been offered each spring, and also last fall for the first time. Its first iteration saw a collaboration with the College of Design, but that hasn’t happened since due traveling between the campuses and a disconnect between each college’s respective goals.

“The Textiles students weren’t used to the critique process,” Istook said. “Textiles students focus on the end consumer. Design students focus on the concept.”

The class structure sees designers develop six-piece collections over the course of 15 weeks. Approximately every five weeks, two garments must be completed and presented to the class. (This year, the middle two critiques were a mere three weeks apart due to class negotiations, according to Istook.) The show doubles as the third checkpoint.

Kristen DePalmo’s collection revolves around resort wear and uses braids and knots as embellishments. She began gathering inspiration and sketching over Christmas break.

“I wanted to make a line that would simplify packing,” DePalmo says, citing her personal inability to pack light. “It’s elegant and mix-and-match. You can slip on a long dress that would also double as a cover-up.”

DePalmo enjoyed getting suggestions on how to improve her work from her peers.

“For many of us, it’s our first time making a collection of garments, so we really appreciate the feedback we get,” DePalmo said. In previous classes, students only made one garment per semester.

• Photo courtesy of Margo Scott, Rocket Betty Designs
• One of designer Margo Scott's tiki-inspired creations.

Mor Aframian initially founded MorLove, a nonprofit with proceeds going to aid orphans at the Amani Baby Cottage in Jinga, Uganda. She met Jamie Powell, who had participated in a MorLove fashion show in 2008. Aframian, Powell and Beth Stewart of Emerging Green Builders joined forces in organizing an eco-friendly fashion show for the Triangle. The first Redress Raleigh (RR) show was held last year.

“We learned a lot from last year. We’ve tried to tweak it and refine it a little more,” Aframian says. Only 15 designers will show Saturday night, as opposed to last year’s 20, and a jurying process was added for potential participants. Planning for the show has lasted for nine months—Aframian likens the process to gestating a child.

The event has attracted high-school, college and professional designers from all over the state. Naturally, the range of talent begets a propensity for diversity.

“There’s a good variety of ready-to-wear [garments], couture and adding different techniques and objects,” Aframian says.

Designer Rima L’Amir first volunteered for MorLove at its inception in 2006. Though this is her first year designing for the event, she had heard of it before.

“I’ve definitely been interested in RR, because sustainable fashion in what I want to do,” L’Amir says.

L’Amir’s collection mixes organic cotton with fabric she’s found in various places, such as her apartment and her work with MorLove.

“It’s a ready-to-wear line for young men and women, ages 20 to 30,” L’Amir says. She notes that this is her first time creating menswear, and it’s been a challenge.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Designer Gennie Catastrophe chats with her models before showing her collection onstage at Reynolds Coliseum.

Audience members cheered and roared for N.C. State’s student designers and models Wednesday night in Reynolds Coliseum. But what the audience never sees is how much hairspray, cookies and ironing go into putting that line out on the runway.

I shadowed designer Gennie Catastrophe and her models in the hours before as they prepared for their moment in the spotlight.

2:15 p.m.: I arrive at eco-friendly Bottega-A Hair Studio on Glenwood Avenue, where Catastrophe has scheduled her models for their hair and make-up. The salon is especially full because Laura Mazzurella’s models are there at the same time. Catastrophe greets me wearing jeans and a white hoodie with a button proclaiming her to be a “B.F.D.,” and introduces me to her models.

Katie Stewart’s curly hair gets teased and volumized, and a stylist clips in thick braids of similar thickness and twists tiny braids of her hair. Debbi La Rue’s hair starts out straight, progresses to an updo and ultimately ends up as a side-swept ponytail. Catastrophe speaks with another stylist and points to her inspiration board for guidance, with its photos of soft waves, braids and light makeup.

Lauren Ramsey sits in another room, getting made up by an Afterglow Cosmetics technician. Ramsey closes her eyes as the technician brushes shadow onto her eyelid, creating a smoky-eye effect.

2:30 p.m.: Ramsey’s clipped-in thick braid is shedding long blond hairs.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Designer Eleanor Hoffman works on her collection in Leazar studio.

When showing a collection, a designer’s job is to take the audience into his or her own created world. Two designers in this year’s Art to Wear (A2W) are pulling from different locales to put their looks in proper context.

Designer Eleanor Hoffman’s collection stems from images of mirrors, moonlight and circles. Two poems, Lorenzo Smerillo’s Maze and Maria Taylor’s Birmingham 1982, serve as initial inspiration points, tacked on the wall above her work space’s sewing machine for easy reference, along with pieces of fabric cut in leaf-like shapes. The moon reference will even make it into her selected runway music, a Grizzly Bear remix of Feist’s "My Moon My Man."

“[I wanted it to be] an enchanted forest, and to have a magical feel,” Hoffman says of her line. Nowhere is this more evident than her plan for a model sporting antlers, taken from her favorite childhood book Imogen’s Antlers. Hoffman’s motifs include natural forms and use fluid lines. She’s using embellishments and laser-cut appliqués made from stencils, so she’s logged some significant time using the College of Design’s laser-cutting machine.

“It’s definitely been a learning experience,” Hoffman says of creating her line, citing examples of bleach and screen-printing mishaps. But she says they’ve turned out to be happy accidents, with the added bonus of making her work look more graphic.

Hoffman had previously designed in the 2009 A2W show, so she knew the ropes pretty well. That experience helped for this year, now that she’s pulling double duty, participating as both a designer and the event’s director. She agreed to fill the capacity before the 2009-10 school year began. There is currently no rule against a director designing a line.

She’s designing one short dress, three long dresses and two jacket and pant sets. Mannequin forms next to her Leazar workspace sport works in progress. A floor-length, one-shoulder dress with a leaf cutout and a pair of pants with beads and a racing stripe silver paint speak to Hoffman’s affinity for detail.

Designer Chase Kennedy is A2W’s youngest participant, being a junior in fashion and textile management. He should be used to this: He was the youngest designer last year as he was the only 19-year-old chosen to show.

• Photo by Sarah Ewald
• Designer Natalie Bunch works on her collection at Leazar studio.

Some designers in this year’s Art to Wear show are taking inspiration from the elements. Two designers in particular are working with water.

Natalie Bunch, a landscape architecture major in the College of Design, was specifically drawn to water’s various properties when she studied in Ghana last summer. Her studio was focused on observations dealing with solutions on improving the environmental systems. She cites drainage canals along every street and trash dumps lining the beach, and how the Ghanaian population connected water systems with sewage systems. Bunch aims to change the prevailing mindset by visually showing how water should be celebrated.

“There’s a way to change [the perspective], and respect water,” Bunch says. She’ll focus on water’s various attributes, such as adaptive, cyclical and aesthetic properties.

“I wanted to give a fresh outsider perspective [on water], and change the perspective on the Ghanaian people,” Bunch says, adding that she didn’t encounter much interest in water systems among the Ghanaians she met.

Bunch began sketching out ideas while still in Ghana, and then began constructing them this spring. She’s preparing five looks, with two of them being menswear. She is using both bought and found materials, including non-wovens, pre-dyed fabrics and fabrics she’s dyed herself. With her range of techniques and fabrics, Bunch is clearly ambitious and plans to showcase that fact loud and clear, especially with her final piece.