ASU fashion program on the fast track for industry innovation

By Suzanne Wilson

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Just months into its first academic year at Arizona State University, the newly established fashion degree program is already looking like a powerhouse for fashion education.

Unfolding since August 2017 in ASU Herberger Institute’s School of Art, the program offers a kaleidoscopic range of topics and experiences that has been drawing students from an array of disciplines to the newly renovated Fashion Studio on ASU’s Tempe campus.

“We are putting together a program that is responsive to today’s changing fashion industry,” said Dennita Sewell, professor of practice and curator of fashion design at Phoenix Art Museum, at a benefactor event for the Arizona Costume Institute (ACI) in March. “The industrial sewing equipment in the studio will help students learn to work in an industry level setting that will prepare them for jobs.” The event included a Q&A talkback between Sewell and designer-to-the-stars Zang Toi, who was a special guest for the ACI event.

The New York-based dressmaker — who counts Sharon Stone, Melinda Gates and Patti LaBelle among his famous clients — shared his enthusiasm for ASU’s new fashion program and the innovative work he saw in the program’s Fashion Technology class.

“I think there is room for everything in fashion,” Toi said of the unique student creations in wearable tech. “I think functional fashion will be great for people who really need it and it will be great for those who have the mindset to create it — really brilliant.”

ASU’s Fashion Technology course with assistant professor Galina Mihaleva is a mixed-media class where dresses and drones sometimes meet. Since the beginning of the spring 2018 semester, Mihaleva and her students have been working on designs inspired by nature and the environment — areas she says are in need of attention as we trend toward healthier and sustainable lifestyles.

“We are building a truly unique fashion degree program that will tap into the resources and knowledge of a global research university and a national museum with strong leadership in this area.”

Steven J. Tepper, Dean + Professor

Beyond smart glasses, watches and what we have come to know of wearable tech, Mihaleva says “smart clothing” can inform us, heal us and even protect us from things that are not immediately apparent in our environment.

Fashion Technology student Ben Viton has been working on an LED-enhanced tracksuit that will scroll text down the suit’s sleeves once activated through computer coding. Joking about the branding opportunities that his LED text suit could attract, Viton also told attendees at the ACI-ASU Fashion Studio event the outfit was inspired by HIV awareness and the idea that the suit could share results of health tests in the spirit of transparency.

Carol Wong and Cindy Tran are co-creating a smart dress design to protect wearers from external pollution. The outfit includes a coding-activated oxygen mask that is designed to pop-up for suggested use when oxygen levels decline to an unhealthy state. Wong, a fashion design major who organized a student-run fashion show for her capstone project, is handling the dress design and Tran, an industrial design senior, is handling the coding.

“Incorporating technology into the traditional design process was an overwhelming experience at first but we all got very excited by the possibilities after we started putting products together and seeing it all come together,” Wong said.

For her part, Mihaleva — who has shown her wearable technology designs at international competitions — is designing a bodice created from kombucha. She is lab-growing textiles created from the bacteria-yeast combination to demonstrate kombucha’s value in sustainable living and design. She also enlisted students from ASU’s Luminosity Lab to help automate and animate her bodice to mimic the human organs’ interactions with microbiomes.

“I think this class is very important in bringing awareness to things that make life better and more transparent,” Mihaleva said. “This is fashion for the future but we need to explore more ideas. It’s not enough today to just be a traditional fashion designer.”