Designer Spotlight: Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Nhu

Full Name: Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Nhu

Age: 18

Hometown: Vietnam

Year at Liberty: Freshman

Years Doing the Fashion Show: 1

Materials being used: ribbons, plastic bags, paper, straws, cotton, fashion catalog.

Design inspiration (paragraph or more explaining where your inspiration comes from)

 Since I am from Vietnam, an Asian country, which was once ruled by kings, I want my piece to have a royalty style to reflect the historical side of my nation. I chose blue, red, silver and gold as these colors are widely considered to be the royalty’s and the aristocrat’s colors. Another point is that I also take inspiration from my name. My full name is Nguyen Ngoc Quynh Nhu.  The first name “Nhu” in Vietnamese means “alike” or “everything is according to one’s wish.” The middle name “Quynh” is a type of night blooming flower-Epiphyllum. This flower is called “Queen of the Night.” Thus, I hope my piece will be as beautiful and dignified in people’s eyes just like the flower.

As the theme is eco-friendliness, I want to show people that the environmental issues are “at hand.” Hence, we should act fast if we want to save our beloved land. I also choose the color red for the environment issues are at an alarming state. So, combining all the above inspiration together, I want to communicate that a person can be classy, royal and eco-friendly at the same time. As a fashion follower, I have my own distinctive style when it comes to my favorite designers; I idolize the kings of couture: Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. As a result, my fashion piece is a bit couture inspired. Furthermore, since the two designers and I share the same love for Japan, my designed dress is affected by the Japanese culture as well. Hence, I improvise a little by using straws to create a fan-like ribbon at the back of the dress. This ribbon can help making my dress more classy and fairy-tale-like. Moreover, I also made several origami figures to showcase the influence of Asian culture on me. Since this dress represents my idiosyncrasies, country and culture, I take great pride in making it.

Favorite part about participating so far:  Getting to understand the process behind a fashion show.

Gaining experience before stepping into the fashion world

Who are your models? Ashton Harrison

Designer Spotlight: Melissa Felder

Full Name: Melissa Felder

Age: 21

Hometown: Utopia, Texas

Year at Liberty: Junior

Years Doing the Fashion Show: 2

Materials being used: Tablecloth, bed sheet, book pages, recycled dress, and trash bags

Design inspiration:When I learned the theme for this year’s fashion show was, Go Green Go Glam, I knew I wanted to make two garments from mostly unconventional materials so, I could experience some of the challenges that these materials would give. My inspiration came from the best place anyone could go in moments of a material inspiration crisis, Pinterest. Scrolling down the pages, I came across several that contained crafts made from recycled books. I loved the texture and color of the pages, and I knew that I wanted to use then in my designs.

The inspiration for my second design, oddly enough, came from the expression, “She would make a trash bag look good.” The phrase is talking about the girl and how she could put on anything and still make it look good, even a trash bag. However, I wanted to see if I could manipulate the bag in such a way that it made the model wearing it look better. The texture, luster, and versatility of the bag also added to my desire to create something from this kind of material.

Favorite part about participating so far: My favorite part about participating so fas has been seeing where I could go when there are no limitations to what you can use. Also, I loved meeting all the other designers and seeing everyone create something totally different.

Who are your models?  Carly Schneider and Chelsey Wolf

Designer Spotlight:Mercedes Weston

Full Name: Mercedes Weston

Age: 23

Hometown: Somersworth, NH

Year at Liberty: Senior!

Years Doing the Fashion Show:This is my second year!

Materials being used: I had a lot of fun finding and using these materials! Some of the thing I used are: an umbrella, an old prom dress, tulle, two sets of curtains, piece from an old wedding dress, denim, two leather jackets, faux fur, soda cans, feathers, spray paint, and faux leather.

Design inspiration:I was inspired heavily by the four elements. Within my theme, I have four garments with inspirations from Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The earth garment, inspired by floral and fauna, include animal-like notions (leather and fur) and grass resembling fabric (green suede.) The air garment has light, flowing fabrics in ethereal colors, with inspirations from bird feathers and golden accents signifying the sun. The fire ensemble is menswear inspired with tailored garments that are brazen in fabric and resemble fire’s nature.

Water is a futuristic take and the most abstract in that the materials that inspired me were less natural and more metallic in nature but still giving the appearance and reflective nature of things found in water environments.

Favorite part about participating so far: Pushing the limits of my creativity and resourcefulness, but also meeting an incredible group of people and working with great models that are also my friends.

Who are your models?  This year I have the gorgeous and talented: Soren Conrad, Amanda Best, Olivia Kate Manning, and Rebekah Sebok.

Designer Spotlight: Timothy MacLeod

Full Name: Timothy John MacLeod

Age: 24

Hometown: Weymouth, Massachusetts

Year at Liberty: Super Extra Senior

Years Doing the Fashion Show: This is my first year

Materials being used: Old couch cushions, old bed sheets, & no-slip padding

Design inspiration (paragraph or more explaining where your inspiration comes from): When I was home for Christmas break my little brother was debating whether or not to throw out the old couch in his room. I had the idea that I wanted to use heavy upholstery fabric so I told him to toss it and let me have the fabric for the show. Surprisingly he did. That is where my inspiration started; finding my fabric. From there everything else came day by day.

Favorite part about participating so far: My favorite part about participating has been the rush of using all these things I learned a long time ago to create something I envisioned in my head. Being back at the machine and constructing has been a lot of fun.

Who are your models? My model is the beautiful Christina Hoang.

Designer Spotlight: Durrell Pannell

Full Name: Durrell M. Pannell

Age:22

Hometown: Lynchburg, Va

Year at Liberty: Senior (Transfer)

Years Doing the Fashion Show: First Year

Materials being used: Trash Bag, Recycled Wedding Dress, Feathers

Design inspiration : I was inspired by the things that I would actually wear myself. I love texture so the first thing I thought about was something you would to touch on a dress. Recycling I thought about feathers a pillow. In thinking that pillows would be too plain, I decided to do something different. So one day while working, taking out of the trash I thought about a pant suit. In my Fashion Industry class we also talked about the see-thru dress in the 1960’s and I wanted to make an appropriate version of that. Lastly, in search for fabric in Goodwill I found an old Wedding dress, in which I wanted the trail to represent a wrap-around like the style today. I wanted my design to plain and glamorous and not, in Mrs. Howard’s words, “Homemade”

Favorite part about participating so far: I would say the excitement and rush in getting everything done really gets your fashion senses going. And the Model walking!

Who are your models? Priscilla Ohene

Designer Spotlight: Amanda Isidro

Full Name: Amanda Isidro

Age: 22

Hometown: Princeton, NJ

Year at Liberty: Senior

Years Doing the Fashion Show: 2

Materials being used: Craft paper, coffee filter, duck tape, packaging tape

Design inspiration (paragraph or more explaining where your inspiration comes from)

My collection was inspired mostly by my admiration for paper and crafts. When I heard about the theme for this year’s fashion show, I knew immediately that I wanted to construct my garments out of paper. Due to my obsession for floral patterns, I wanted to incorporate it into my designs with paper filter embellishments. After researching the projected colors for Spring 2014 and based on preference, shades of orange were a reoccurring theme. The color that caught my eye most was peach. I believe that it is a very refreshing color, especially for Spring

Favorite part about participating so far: Getting to see how creative and talented people are.

Who are your models? Erin Peters, Paige McCugin, Fabine Edma

Designer Spotlight: Tenzi ChaCha

Full Name: Tenzi Anastasia Chacha

Age: 19

Hometown: Martinsville VA

Year at Liberty: Jr

Years Doing the Fashion Show: First

Materials being used: suit Jackets, black jumpers, neck ties, bottle caps, tulle

Design inspiration (paragraph or more explaining where your inspiration comes from)

The dress I made using neckties is inspired by the formal business suit and tie look. The dress I made using bottle caps is inspired by long hot sunny days doing missions work in Tanzania. When we were finished with a hard day of work we would sit back and drink a nice cold soda

Favorite part about participating so far: Getting to experiment with different materials I had never used before to create something completely original.

Who are your models? Emily Stokes, Raise Clark