Fashioning the Future

Much like the artists whose work is featured in the exhibition Pressing Issues: Printmaking as Social Justice in 1930s United States, apparel design students from the University of Minnesota College of Design, Studio III course were tasked with responding to the current moment through the lens of design. Design, like art, offers imagination to not only solve the problems in front of us, but to imagine and create an alternative future than the one we seem headed for. From proposed solutions for a fashion industry plagued by labor and environmental injustices to the use of clothing as a tool to help those in their communities, the exhibition Pressing Issues was used as a prompt to push students to move beyond designing for consumption. This created an opportunity for designers to apply their skill set to develop new ways of thinking and working, and to use new approaches required for living with and solving wicked, systemic and intersecting issues. 

Download and read the designers’ concept statements (PDF)

DESIGNERS: Erin Briggs, Quianna Peterson, Jaden Evenso, Elliot Floum, Abby Harrold, Allison Holm, Katie Johnson, Hannah Kasner, Tyanna Man, Neema Mochoge, Sonu Lane, Siobahn Sullivan, Summer Vue, Ava Wagner, Laine Williams, Cindy Leewood, Kylie Halverson, Bridget Holzer