Runways more aerodynamic than Tweed

A new line of `trashy' club wear

COURTESY JENNIFER JO ROGIEN

This school might be famous for a lot of things, but fashion isn't one of them. A look around campus reveals that Yalies don't stray too far from the nondescript, preppy garb that got most of us through high school. Nonetheless, a small number of students take clothing design beyond grabbing a clean fleece or the right pair of black pants. With her innovative designs and exploration of unconventional materials, Jennifer Jo Rogien, PC '00, is a prime example.

Rogien's latest project, a series of dresses constructed from garbage bags, featured prominently in a recent runway show staged by Vyrtigo, Yale's fashion magazine. The Art & Architecture Building's Little Gallery also displayed the dresses, which Rogien made for her senior project. She has received a great deal of positive feedback about her work, and at the Vyrtigo show, one onlooker remarked, "I didn't know garbage bags could do that."

Last year, Rogien began the project that would culminate in her dresses as an attempt to explore materials not usually associated with clothing. She had previously made an evening gown out of duct tape but then decided she "wanted a disposable material." After some searching, she settled on garbage bags because they provided a wide range of colors, styles, and weights. She first tried sewing them like a traditional fabric, but found that cutting and tying them together produced the best results. The dresses involve multiple layers of bags placed together in order to mix colors and textures and to counteract their transparency. While this construction recalls the crinkled cotton of recent Donna Karan collections and loosely resembles Versace's spring line, Rogien's designs are thoroughly original.

COURTESY JENNIFER JO ROGIEN Jennifer Jo Rogien, PC '00, designed these outfits for her senior art project by cutting up garbage bags with an X-acto knife.

Despite the success of her dresses, Rogien has no immediate plans to sell any of her dresses, which she believes would look good as club wear. They do have drawbacks, since they are very warm and often tear easily—not qualities that are fit for dancing. More importantly, she did not make them with sales in mind. While she says that she would produce more if somebody in the industry expressed interest, she made her dresses purely as art.

The project is reflexive, both fashion and a commentary on the production and perception of fashion. "I wanted people to think about the transience and cost of fashion, which essentially throws itself away every season. What does it say when you mimic the forms of haute couture with disposable materials?" Rogien said. For starters, it says that she has the originality and audacity that defines the best high fashion.

—Nathan Littlefield

Fashion hope for D-Port men?

If one dares to follow the maniacal twists and turns of fashion, one almost runs full force into the trends coming up around the bend. The fashion forwards of the 21st century are tanned, rested, and ready. Opulent detailing, sumptuous workings of leather, and vibrant hues create an ambience of luxury and leisure in an age of much talked-about prosperity. Heady catch phrases such as Michael Kors' "Palm Bitch" and the "Almost a Lady" secretary-chic of Prada certainly encapsulate the feel of the season. Yet at the same time, they manage to leave out a significant portion of consumers—that is the 90 percent of human beings who could not afford a single piece from the collection. In spite of their infamous aversion to shopping, men have indeed become a palpable and active consumer presence in the world of fashion. The overflow of both male and female students at a recent Davenport Mas-ter's Tea provides a small taste of this growing truth.

COURTESY ASSOCIATED PRESS From the collection of menswear designer Sandy Dalal.

Sandy Dalal, a former student at the University of Pennsylvania, kicked off the activities for Asian Pacific Heritage Month on Fri., Mar. 31 with an informative and upbeat discussion about his rising stardom in the fashion industry and the relationship of men to style and trends. While he is constantly referred to as the "modern dandy," Dalal has an intuitive understanding of the measured interaction between men and clothes. A real change in men's closets must come slowly, surely, and always with a certain reverence to classic shapes and cuts. Dalal's swift success in the fashion world perhaps proves that he knows what he is talking about. His Spring and Summer 2000 collections clearly embody that philosophy.

As much of a trademark as his name, Dalal enjoys creating combinations that crackle with a youthful and refreshing insouciance on the runway. The obsession with eye-catching visuals pops into view in the form of light floral print clamdiggers, color-blocked sport coats, and shorts and jackets in a fractured chevron pattern. Already the average Joe must be shuddering in his pre-frayed cargo shorts. Most menswear designers, however, take into account the comfort level of the typical male consumer. For Dalal, that means crisp sleeveless shirts, fuller leg pants that hang cleanly from the waist, and versatile shirt-jackets. These particular pieces may indeed be derivative of Miuccia Prada's quirky yet austere men's line, but they are accomplished with a little less aesthetic self-indulgence. Even with this presence in his collection, Dalal never strays from his own vision as he pairs tangerine Chuck Taylor All-Stars with windowpane check slacks.

Keeping the conceptual ethos of Sandy Dalal in mind, in the future there may be some hope for variety, and maybe even a little fun, in the realm of men's fashion. Maybe then the standard menswear catchphrase will no longer be "A&F Lifestyle."

—Jamil V. Moen

Science-fiction picture show

COURTESY ESTEBAN ARBOLEDA Architecture of the human body by Esteban Arboleda. SY '00.

Some Yalies are bookish and antiquated, dominated by a haughty contempt for the excessive trappings of a vacuous popular culture. Others are simply intellectual snobs who find more comfort in being ensconced in Voltaire than Versace. Some may comment that Yalies are frumpy and pret-á-porté, devoid of the presentation of true class or élan. Most Yalies are sheep, swaddled in the brand names of North Face and Aber-crombie & Fitch, which are as tastelessly displayed as the sponsor advertising of Nascar. However, within our gilded and ivy-covered sanctuary, Esteban Arboleda, SY '00, is using the fruits of his liberal education to actually create a style with substance.

An architecture major, Arboleda has been incorporating self-designed fashion pieces into his photography. The artist describes his work as "sculpture," with clothing designs that drive his study of the architecture of the human body. With a flare for science-fiction futurism, Arboleda uses his work as a "portal" to a "no-place" in which the beauty of the everyday can be expressed through the fashion of tomorrow. The clothing designs in his photographs become part of his exploration of humanity's inner soul, condemning the mass-production of style, expression, emotion, and art into commodified objects.

As Yalies in many ways become programmed to avoid risk and never to look beyond the "superficiality" of visual culture, we often fall victim to inherent pressure from society to conform our modes of expression. Perhaps it is this environment that has inspired the artist. Arboleda defies the norm, injecting the theories that he has studied in art classes into a revolutionary fashion design that is able to communicate an unconventional, yet enlightened, self. Arboleda proves that at Yale anything can be accomplished—even fashion.

—Adam Fein

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