Over the summer, three industrious Textile Design students sat down and started cutting out images and gluing them to a massive sheet of foam core. They added butterflies of yarn, pearlescent beads, and arranged the images so that they interacted with each other until it became a swirling, glittering mass of soft and hot pinks, electric blues, iridescent purples and whisps of green. Together, they created one large mood board that would illustrate and inform a collection of knitwear that they would create together. These students signed up for Fashion Knit 401, a studio class that detailed the process of designing and making a sweater from scratch. And unlike previous studio classes where they were responsible for their own work only, now they were going to work and design as a team. I'm Professor Meghan Kelly, and this is the first time I'm teaching this class.
Their first task was establish a line of communication that they stuck to for the whole class. Out of options like Slack, Teams, or email, they chose straightforward group texting. The next task was to decide on the season, theme, and color story for the collection. Immediately it became clear how important the communication was going to be. At first everyone gravitated towards their own favorite colors but as they chose images, they were able to find common ground and select a color story.
