Coterie and Parsons Presents ‘Next in Class’ Womenswear

Three womenswear graduates from Parsons 2017 BFA group have been awarded the opportunity to present and talk about their collections with retailers and exhibitors attending Coterie, the three-day trade fair which began on Sunday in the Javits Center.

Knitwear designer Panisa Busayanont’s thesis collection was born from studying the lifespan of the lotus flower of her native Thailand, watching it rot and eventually be eaten by a fungus. Following a personal experience of the loss of a loved one, her experiment prompted the question: Does every ending have to be filled with grief? She began to collect used sweaters from J Crew and other retailers, several that had shrunk in the laundry, from Brooklyn’s good will stores, and drape them on the body. She then introduced luxury Italian yarns that had been donated and wove them into the creations, combining the old and the new, the discarded and the desirable together. This form of upcycling is a concept upon which she would like to expand in the future by collaborating with brands and convincing them to donate their unused inventory so that she could produce more than just one-of-a-kind pieces.

Sijia Wu considers herself a minimalist and found inspiration from the subject of a Tang dynasty poem: a storm brewing in mountains. The subtle atmospheric shifts and precarious balance before the chaos is captured effectively in a sandy blazer of which the torso is held together by the merest slivers of thread so that the two halves appear suspended in the air.

Hayley Qu tackles through her collection that often awkward and polemic issue: women’s sizing. She looked at how throughout history women’s bodies have been modified for fashion: in Africa, the neck lengthened with rings; in Europe, the waist shrunk through corsetry; in Asia, the feet bound, whereas today What size are you? is the mundane, practical question that strikes terror into the hearts of many. Female sizing is riddled with power and meaning, and Qu seeks to go beyond unisex, entitling her collection ‘Non-Sized’ because through a process of wrapping, replacing side seams with zippers, and incorporating ‘sandwiching’ layers, the pieces are designed to be worn by women of all sizes.

The production of one garment is more ethical than replicating the same style all the way from 0 to size 22, she adds, before proceeding to demonstrate how an elegant and extremely roomy––by society’s current standards––pant envelops the body to become a neat-waisted bi-color two-tiered palazzo. The back overlaps the front, she explains, and non-sized means the same garment adapts to different bodies. ‘We should not have to change our body to fit. Our body should be served by our garments, not the other way, and the beauty of the body should be as it is.’

Some photos author’s own; homepage image SijiaWu.com; Knit image bpanisa.com