Fashion Show

First hand fashion.

Second hand materials.

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re:MAKE Fashion Show

These eco-focused designs were a truly inspiring beginning to the Swap-O-Rama-Rama weekend. Browse our photos of the event and please read the full program information below.

re:MAKE

FASHION SHOW

FRIDAY MARCH 19

Chicago Waldorf School

creative direction: Talia Hagerty

event coordination: Katie Hawkey Swindler, Vin Reed & Cathey Stamps

music: Bogar Alonso

lighting: Christian Schnell & Michael Clayton

hair & make-up: Anna Suarez & Studio62

fashion: DESIGNERS

YUNGCHEN PALDEN

Yungchen has shown an interest in fashion from a very young age. A budding fashionista, she has a ﬂair for stylishly putting clothes together. Her interest in fashion design has really taken off this year, since she received a

gift of a sewing kit from her grandmother. Yungchen enjoys sketching her own fashion designs and watching Project Runway on television. She has a dream of becoming a real fashion designer! Yungchen has created her re:MAKE look from a second-hand dress, sweater, and poncho.

CESIA RAMOS

Born in Panama to a multi-cultural family, Cesia Kerem Ramos is inspired by her up-bringings, roots and culture. Her philosophy encompasses the social consciousness of heritage, nostalgia and withdrawal from the known through faith. Since beginning a fashion design program at the International

Academy of Design & Technology in 2004, Cesia has enjoyed many design internships in Chicago and spent time in New York learning the fashion industry. The leather jacket featured in re:MAKE was inspired by the intricacy of menswear in the Rococo period. It is recycled from a men's leather jacket purchased in a thrift store.

ALY GREAVES

Aly Greaves received her B.A. in theatre in 1997 at Knox College, and her M.F.A. in costume design from Carnegie Mellon University. While at Carnegie Mellon, she did her thesis work on the fantabulous Lulu Play by Frank Wedikind. Aly also had the rare pleasure to work for Mister Fred Rogers making costumes and props for the neighborhood of make-believe. Aly works as the assistant costumer and head of hair and make-up at the College of DuPage. She serves as the costume designer/advisor for Strawdog Theatre Company productions. Talented at making new from the old, her collection for re:MAKE is constructed from thrift store ﬁnds and allows her a creative foray into the fashion world.

AMALIA BUISSON AND SARAH MARGUIER

Amalia Buisson came to Chicago from Portugal in 2009 to intern at the Redmoon Theater where she performed a build-shop internship creating puppets and costumes. Sarah Marguier is a student in the fashion department at Les Arts décoratifs de Paris. She came to Chicago in 2009 as an exchange student at the School of the Art Institute. She is currently working as an intern at Redmoon Theater and plans to become a costume designer. Their collection featured in re:MAKE is inspired by the shapes and colors found in everyday organic waste. Geometric and straight lines

intentionally accentuate curvy volumes of collars. Materials include organic waste, branches, tea bags and crocheted fabric and plastic. These wearable sculptures express how contrast and opposites coexist armonically in nature.

CANDICE SCHOEDEL

Candice Schoedel is from East Peoria, IL and graduated from Illinois State University in family and consumer sciences with a specialization in fashion design. Her collection is made from deconstructed garments found at Goodwill and Salvation Army. Her ﬂoral dress was once a sheet. Her patchwork dress is made from button up shirts and vintage ribbon. Her skirt is made from a vintage cashmere coat, and her shirt is from a men's button up and a bed skirt. The inspiration for the outﬁts is wearable fashion from re-used fabric with a fresh and playful, yet classically feminine design aesthetic.

JENNIFER LEZAN

Jennifer Marie Lexan has earned an AS degree in fashion design and a BA in fashion marketing and graphic design from Illinois Institute of Art. She is a mom to 2-year-old Bella Ann and is pursuing her graduate degree at Columbia Chicago. She is a full time freelance contractor and journalist focusing on fashion marketing, public relations and graphic design, launching local brands to the next level. The Felt Flower line encompasses Jennifer Lezan’s fashion ideology: the intersection of fashion and art. By reconstructing vintage garments she is doing her part to keep our Earth green and happy! See more at jennifermarielezan.com

DANI JOHNSON

Originally from Portland, Oregon, Dani Johnson recently moved to Chicago from Austin where she was part of several fashion shows. Her grandmother taught her how to use a sewing machine when she was eight years old – and she hasn’t been without one since. She has always felt the need to make use of unwanted and discarded items. Dani ﬁnds them beautiful because they turn out to be completely one of a kind and probably won’t see another life after they hit the trash. She loves to show people that you can make wonderful things out of “junk.“ The materials used in her re:MAKE

collection include old bed sheets, T-shirts, slips, old dresses, and men's western pearl-snap shirts.

ANNIE NOVOTNY

An alum of The School of the Art Institute fashion program, Annie Novotny has worked in the fashion industry for the past six years. After a run in New York’s Garment District as a design assistant, Novotny moved back to Chicago in 2006 and began Frei Designs. Frei is a women’s line with an emphasis on style and sustainability. Sourcing materials that are organic, ethically produced, fair-trade, and fast renewing, Novotny strives to balance innovative design with conscientious methods. You can ﬁnd the collection for sale in stores nationwide or at Annie’s boutique, Workshop, in Pilsen. Workshop carries local designer clothing, accessories, and ﬁndings. The garments being featured at this show are popular designs from her current collection made from vintage dead-stock fabrics from the 60’s. This vintage fabric capsule collection is only available at Workshop.

www.workshopchicago.com

www.freidesigns.com

MICHAL LYNN

Michal Lynn is a recent graduate of the University of Chicago with a degree in art history. As an undergraduate, she was involved in costume design, student fashion shows, and the outdoor installation of an 11-foot tall dress during the campus-wide Festival of the Arts. She is drawn to recycled clothing and linens for their intrinsic nostalgic quality and for the challenge

of creating garments from objects rather than from fabric. Her pieces are made primarily of vintage linens: pillowcases, bobbin-tape lace from table cloths, doilies, dust rufﬂes, and bedsheets.

JENNI GUARASCIO

Jenni Guarascio is the founder of Minx Parlor and specializes in repurposing and refashioning vintage couture. Minx Parlor cultivates

fashion and art in Chicago by creating an experience that will resurrect the “inner minx” in fashion savvy men and women. Jenni has also created a partnership with the Kikaaya, School of College in Uganda and shares her

talents with Ugandan women through video instruction. After hearing of the help villages in Uganda desperately seek, she decided to buy a handheld video recorder and create step-by-step instructions on how to properly design and construct a garment. Jenni has been ﬂattered to receive numerous letters of gratitude and to learn of the positive impact

she has made. Her collection from re:MAKE – made completely from refashioned vintage pieces – is one of the many ways that Jenni promotes reuse and responsibility locally and globally. Jen! Felt Flower transforms vintage ﬁnds into unique and contemporary items. See more at www.jennifermarielezan.com

jewelry: DESIGNERS

NABIHA NIAZI

Nabiha Niazi loves to make luxurious pieces using silver, gold and an array of stones. She is not a formally trained jewelry designer, but she uses her own knowledge of what is fashionably appealing. For Nabiha, fashion is

all about individuality and she keeps that ideal alive through the broad assortment of unique and personal styles available in her jewelry collections. What sets Nabiha’s line, Bee, LLC apart, is that the diversity of her fashion is actually rooted in unity. Bee, LLC works in conjunction with partner non-proﬁt organization Bee Charitable and $15 from each piece sold is donated to local charities – it’s a genuine effort to unite fashion and charity. www.beeforacause.com

LORI WANNER

Lori Wanner, owner of Glory Jewelry Designs, creates unique pieces from second-hand jew- elry that she has refurbished, pieced together, embellished, and created to look like new. Once in a while she is able to come across several of the same pieces so that she can create multiples. However, the majority of her designs are one of a kind. Lori believes it is

important to understand where our jewelry originates. From the metal mines to boutiques, Lori hopes to educate the jewelry consumer on the impact their purchase makes on the lives of others. After spending six months in Africa, Lori saw the messy cycle of poverty and felt the need to do something about it. Glory Jewelry Designs became her response. It is Lori’s dream to use her jewelry business to train and employ women, giving them hope for a future.

welcome: LETTER

Thank you for attending re:MAKE, the kick-off event for the Swap-O-

Rama-Rama weekend! You are about to enjoy a sampling of Chicago’s most innovative green fashion. Each of the designers featured tonight has created their collection from re-used and vintage fabric and recycled material to inspire us for the next two days of creative re-use.

Experience levels range from our youngest designer, Yungchen, age nine, who dreams of becoming a fashion designer, to professionals with their own complete lines. Tonight you will see the current and the next generation of fashion design. What is most beautiful about this work is that it marries style and taste with the respect for the planet that must carry us into this new

decade.

Over the next two days, at Swap-O-Rama-Rama, we will all have the opportunity to use the creative energy that is culminating tonight to advance creative re-use in our community and practice the ideas that you will see presented on stage: everything is beautiful, nothing is wasted.

I hope that what you see this evening will inspire and excite you! Enjoy!

Talia Hagerty

Swap-O-Rama-Rama Fashion Events Director

special: THANKS

Jennie Hawkey

The Chicago Waldorf School

All of our volunteers and models

Jane Canepa, Demeko Taylor, and

Columbia College’s Events and

Promotions Students

Water Bar provided by Jacob Swindler

AFTER PARTY AT VIET BISTRO LOUNGE