07 08 19 iD Magazine Christopher and Chelsea

i-D Magazine July 8, 2019 “8 emerging designers to watch ” Share the interviews with Christopher Moster Cabalona and Chelsea Grays, two students from the Academy of Art University, at the CFDA Fashion Futures Graduate Showcase. h ps://i-d.vice.com/en_us/ar cle/neayad/8-emergingdesigners-to-watch

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See the exciting work by the young talent featured in the CFDA Fashion Future Graduate Showcase

Now in its third year, the CFDA’s Fashion Future Graduate Showcase aims to highlight emerging design talent from all over the world. The physical showcase of their collections took place last month in New York City, but now it continues online. The work of 50 exciting young designers from 11 different schools around the country is on display, each one furthering the progressive evolution of fashion. i-D spoke with eight of the rising designers about the inspirations behind their collections and how they envision the future of fashion.

Christopher Moster Cabalona, 28, Academy of Art Universit What is the source of inspiration for your designs?

I found inspiration in the clowns of the early 1900s. My collection takes the element of choreographed joy and channels it into sophisticated and structured looks. I incorporated metal hardware such as turnlocks, purse closures, and clasps and I developed cropped jackets, tailored pants, tail-coat vests, and jumpers. Beige in color, with elongated sleeves and exaggerated silhouettes, the collection boldly takes a risk in rede ning what is commonly perceived as classic male attire

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Is there a story behind your collection?

Despite the inspiration of clowns, the designs are not intended to be “playful,” rather,

they emphasize the contradiction of being exuberant while showing elegance and re nement “in character”. I aim to honor clowns’ cheerful yet dramatic essence. For example, a key menswear element — the vest, is reinvented as a piece that showcases both physical humor as well as an awareness of the concept of the “businessman.”

Advancing my inspiration further, I adapted the clown’s traditional baggy and vibrant costumes and transformed them into tted and tailored garments that convey optimism, yet remain sensitive to the notion of depression and its extensions. The clowns serve as a call for people to enjoy life despite the hurdles and feelings of sadness they may face, that “life is beautiful, don’t waste it”.

What does the future of fashion look like to you?

Future of fashion to me is refurbishing and guilt-free. Of course, sustainability will always be the answer. Also, I see precious old fashioned metal hardware as an epitome of a fresh take on trimmings replacing buttons and zippers on tailored garments

Chelsea Grays, 26, Academy of Art University

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What are you most inspired by?

What inspires me most is my ability to help people. I take what have seen or experienced in everyday life and look for solutions through clothing. I'm inspired by my

ability to do something positive. This is of course affected by my past studying psychology. I am driven to social issues and I use my creativity to raise awareness of these issues Can you tell us a bit about the story behind your collection?

The Organized Chaos Collection began with a social documentary. Walking around the streets of San Francisco, especially in the Tenderloin, to understand why people were homeless and what they needed while living on the streets. I also had subtle inspiration from Basquiat but then developed the collection to focus on Basquiat and his time being homeless and on drugs. Although I was driven to Basquiat's work as an artist, I was more intrigued by the clothing he would wear. This really pulled me to add mix and match prints and patterns into my collection, along with what I describe as a pant series.

The pant series is comprised of several different pants that look like skirts. There is also handcrafted element such as screen printing and felting to add texture. I appreciate the idea of making this collection unique, therefore having organic shapes and un-perfect printing effect added to that. The collection began as womenswear which later would merge into unisex. As the collection continued to develop I began to focus on menswear. While growing up, my mother always wore men's clothing out of necessity.

She had to share clothes with her brother so she had to be creative when buying clothes. I wanted to add that effect which inspired the idea of unisex but still played a part with the men in skirt pants in my collection What does the future of fashion look like to you?

When I received [your] email I was scrolling through google looking for Ph.D. programs for Fashion Design. The results of my search were slim to none. Some schools just arrived at Masters level programs. At this point, it is probably overzealous of me to think there will be Ph.D. offers. Therefore, when I think about the future of fashion I think about less skill but more creativity. A strong bottom-up in uence on fashion and designing clothing for robots or designing with inspiration from people who are far removed from society due to robots. Technological advances are of course going to change the design industry. As of lately, I believe the fashion industry controls society not the other way around, which I think will continue to evolve.

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Read more here: https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/neayad/8-emerging-designers-towatch