Personal Adornment Day

Personal adornment day is always tons of fun. For anyone who might not be familiar with it, it's the annual spring runway show of wearable art. Sometimes it's more classic fashion, but sometimes it's way out there innovative materials or crazy performance art. This year's show seemed to go really fast, and I'm not sure why. I don't think there were any fewer participants, but maybe there were just fewer performance pieces and more uptempo music choices to walk through. I don't mind whether the show goes fast or slow, it was just an observation I made.

The guest judge was Christine Zoller, and she actually had a workshop session before the show. I thought that was a lot of fun. For me, the demos weren't that exciting because I had learned what she had showed us in Professor Grimsley's class, but it was nice to have a refresher from a visiting artist. My favorite part of that session was seeing her own fiber art.

As for the show, there were the usual awards. I don't remember all of the categories, but a few stand out in my mind. Innovative use of materials went to a girl who had made a sort of robot suit out of all sorts of reclaimed metal. She had big shoes that looked difficult to walk in, but I felt that the most interesting part was the bicycle wheel/arm hybrid piece. I had actually seen this part before when the whole wearable piece was in progress, and it was nice to see it finished. I also think she deserved that award because hers was the least like clothing and looked like the most difficult to actually wear. Avant garde went to Devon for one of her 2 dresses. I had also seen this piece in progress up in the mezzanine all semester, but the headdress really tied it all together and took it to another level past "pretty dress". As for best in show, this was a girl who had done 3 dresses in shades of blue. I was somewhat disappointed in the choice, not that the work wasn't nice. Just to me it seemed more like traditional fashion and some nice dresses. However, I do know that a lot more work goes into pieces like this than meets the eyes, especially when you get to hand dyeing and stitching. I also understand why Zoller would choose something like this, as a fiber artist herself and being familiar with the dyeing and stitching involved. She said she chose these because she would wear each of them. I think maybe I would appreciate them more if I could see them up close and study the work in them more, but I think it was an ok choice for a winner.