Art Couture at Cornell Museum
I was so excited to when I was approached by Melanie, the curator of the Cornell Art Museum to be part of their Art Couture Exhibit! I primarily focus on making RTW pieces that can be worn in client’s every day lives, so anytime that I get to make couture gowns I am thrilled! The whole premise of this exhibition was to focus on the art of fashion. So often fashion is just thought of as something to clothe your body, but at its core, fashion truly is an art form! I often refer to myself as a fabric sculptor, because at the end of the day fashion designers are tasked with taking 2 dimensional fabric and have to make it 3 dimensional to fit on a moving body.
For this show, I was given the freedom to show anything in an entire gallery that I wanted which was truly a dream come true! It was on my professional bucket list to have something I created in an art exhibit. The icing on the cake was that I was given the atrium of the museum to put a gown. This part of the museum can be seen from the first and second floors, and is the center of the entire building. To say it was an honor does not even begin to describe it!
For the room with my clothes, I decided to break it up into two different statements. My first statement was called “From Runway to Reality”. On each stage there were two looks, one that showed a runway piece (that I had on the runway at NYFW, LAFW or Project Runway), and then a look in the same fabric that could be worn in the real world.
For the center of the room I made a statement of couture gowns called “Fashion is Art”. This was where I really was able explore my creativity. I literally just took fabric and started playing with no rules. I can’t tell you how refreshing this was!
The centerpiece of my couture collection that hung in the Atrium is called We Are All Stars. I spent hours and hours on this lady and it was a true labor of love. With over 200 yards of tulle, she took over 150 hours to create! I hand cut the stars from a beautiful fabric and my team and I appliquéd them by hand to make them shine, just like all of us. We hung her 16 feet in the air on a swing that I custom built to give everyone a 360 degree view of her beauty!
Because details truly are everything, we couldn’t let our girls wear ugly shoes! My team and I hand adorned all of the shoes, which was so much fun! The tough part was we really wanted to wear them all after the exhibit!
After the Cornell Museum exhibit opened, COVID-19 hit. Unfortunately our exhibition had to close early, but it will live on forever in pictures.
Before we had to close the exhibit totally to keep everyone safe, I made some couture masks to match the dresses to show that even when you’re being safe, you can shine!
This exhibit exceeded even my wildest dreams, and I will be grateful for this opportunity for the rest of my life. I mean how often do you get to have your work hung in an exhibit with one of your fave artists of all time- ANDY WARHOL!