Nashville legend teaches Vanderbilt college students the artwork of ‘sluggish trend’ | Vanderbilt Information

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College students in a Vanderbilt class took a novel hands-on look into the historical past of trend and sustainability with the assistance of Nashville trend design icon Manuel Cuevas. Manuel is greatest identified for creating couture “rhinestone cowboy” designs for Elvis, the Beatles, Johnny Money, Dolly Parton, Child Rock and others.

Couture trend design icon Manuel Cuevas in his Nashville studio.

“Manuel likes to inform the scholars that he hasn’t labored a day in his life as a result of he so sincerely loves what he does,” stated Alexandra Sargent Capps, principal senior lecturer of theatre and supervisor of the Vanderbilt Costume Store.

Manuel reveals the Vanderbilt college students how he crafts his couture items.

The scholars noticed how Manuel represents “sluggish trend,” the thought of constructing clothes regionally, typically by hand, with high-quality materials designed to final for a very long time.

Scholar-athlete Kalija Lipscomb selecting out a favourite from Manuel’s assortment.

Risks of ‘quick trend’

Compared to Manuel’s strategies, the scholars studied the influence that “quick trend” has on society and the atmosphere. “Quick trend” is cheap clothes produced quickly by mass-market retailers in response to the most recent developments, utilizing manufacturing processes that always are thought of abusive towards the atmosphere and the employees who create it.

This picture from pupil Bridget Morris’ mission reveals a garment employee in a sea of scrap materials and dye.

“My largest takeaway from this class was the thought of trend sustainability and the impacts of our throw-away tradition,” stated pupil Bridget Morris of Baskin Ridge, New Jersey, who gave a presentation on selling garment employees’ rights and environmental sustainability.

“I now have a greater thought of the place my garments come from and who’s making them,” added pupil Jess Orkin from Nashville. “So after I purchase tremendous low cost stuff off the web, I do know that it’s additionally instantly affecting folks’s water and land, and employees are sometimes having to make the garments in actually inhumane situations.”

Carrying historical past

As a part of the category, college students checked out how historic figures have influenced trend in the present day.  Basketball student-athlete Kaleigh Clemons-Inexperienced demonstrated how she transforms her exercise shirt into a headband that references the highly effective historic Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

College students Kaleigh Clemons-Inexperienced and Ashab Shahzad sporting Kaleigh’s recycled headpiece.

“There’s an empowerment tone that we need to have as a result of we stay in a sexist society, particularly in sports activities. So we need to draw from Queen Nefertiti for power,” Clemons-Inexperienced stated.

She identified that her analysis discovered that many ladies, particularly feminine athletes, pose in stances resembling Nefertiti.

Sustainable and historic trend

Sargent Capps mixed the themes of sustainable and historic trend in her personal exhibit on the Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park. Sargent Capps and college students from a trend sustainability class designed robes utilizing recycled supplies and created posters that demonstrated how the sustainable practices modeled by the traditional Greeks by no means exit of favor.

“I needed to provide the scholars an immersive expertise in trend historical past by means of the lens of design concept, design apply and the sustainable trend motion,” Sargent Capps stated.

Sargent Capps and college students from a trend sustainability class designed robes and posters utilizing recycled supplies.

Video by Pat Slattery and Amy Wolf.

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