The Savannah College of Art and Design has a reputation for bringing the buzziest of fashion folk to the place where you least expect them; a quaint, historic city in the South. What else could Aurora James and Zerina Akers and industry insiders including Vogue’s Virginia Smith, Bruce Pask of Neiman Marcus, and Puck’s Lauren Sherman be doing together in Savannah, Georgia, other than attending SCAD’s annual student fashion show?
The former Style.com editor Dirk Standen took over as dean of SCAD’s School of Fashion in 2022. He’s brought new energy to the Fashion department, putting his rolodex to work to place SCAD students in front of the likes Anna Sui, Raul Lopez of Luar, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Marni’s Francesco Risso, LaQuan Smith, and Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada, all of whom have joined panels or reviewed portfolios in the past year.
It can be isolating to study fashion in Savannah, far from covetable fashion internships and the vivid social life of New York. Shaping students with unique points of view at a remove from outside influences is one of SCAD’s strengths, but its distance from America’s fashion capital has often been considered a chink in its armor, particularly by its own pupils. (It certainly was the case when I was in the fashion program a couple of years ago.) Consider this gap now filled.
SCAD’s class of 2024 received the bulk of their fashion education in person, unlike pandemic-era graduates who were forced to learn and study online, and it showed in the technical achievements of their designs. Offering the year’s best tailoring were Peter Shonoda, with his sculpted necklines and suspended shoulders on jackets and eveningwear, and Ben Callaghan, with his deft exploration of shape. Neither collection looked like student work. The way Eileen Barry incorporated functioning flotation devices into her survivalist menswear was impressive, as were the surreal buoyancy of Sze Yau Ng’s sinuous drapes and the furniture-making skills of Ellie Byrd, who turned a functional chair part into an overcoat.
SCAD has a robust Fibers department focused on textile development, which makes materialization a particular focus of student collections. Show opener Alexa Wexler’s textural painted weaves and shaggy outerwear evoked a compelling spirit of angst-meets-craft. Earl Godfrey’s innovative and outlandish digital reinterpretations of denim gave the humble material a rare new feel, and Sammy Baker’s magpie amalgamation of textiles created surfaces that explored undiscovered territories. Isabelle Ferrugia, Ran Lu, and Maggie Foster, meanwhile, all offered fantastic, store-ready knitwear propositions.
