A shoe on your foot may be just a shoe. But a shoe in the hands of a student at Maryland Institute College of Art, in Baltimore, may become a dress, some gloves, an animal mask or even binoculars.J Shoes, an international shoe manufacturer, recently asked students in a costume design class at MICA’s fiber department a question: “Could a contemporary shoe be transformed into an entirely different object with an entirely different purpose?”
The project was sparked when the shoe company, based nationally on Cronridge Drive in Owings Mills, was deciding what to do with the hundreds of half-a-pair of shoes they received for testing from the company factory in Thailand....
They had three weeks to complete their creations, which were then displayed in the Brown Center on Oct. 1.The students’ work was also judged by a panel consisting of the chairwoman of the fiber department, the editor of Style Magazine and representatives of J Shoes.The top three winners received prizes ranging from a pair of shoes to $300 in cash.Students said it was a fun way to work with a variety of fabrics.“I liked that I had the opportunity to work with new materials, such as leather, and it gave me the opportunity to deconstruct and reconstruct something,” said sophomore Sarah Konigsburg, whose finished product, a bag “with a heel,” won second place.
Professor Jessica Ford said the creations were successful across the board and also gave students a more pragmatic project.“There was clearly evidence of a lot of work and I think the students were passionate about it,” she said. “It was sort of a nice introduction to marketing for them. At art school, they are sort of focused on concept and idea.”The J Shoes exhibit runs until Oct. 15 on the second floor of the Brown Center at MICA, 1300 Mount Royal Ave., in Baltimore.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment