Fashion Design: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Fashion 2018 Runway Show and Exhibition Challenges Viewers to Engage with Fashion

CHICAGO–Students from the Department of Fashion Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), a global leader in art and design education, will make a bold statement when their designs hit the runway at the School’s annual fashion show and exhibition on May 4.

“The goal of our program is to teach our students through exhibition, installation and the runway how to send their fashion creations out into the world,” said Katrin Schnabl, Sage Foundation Chair of SAIC’s Fashion Design department. “Vibrant and full of energy, the collections and accessories displayed at this year’s SAIC exhibition will surprise, amaze, challenge and change the way you approach and engage with fashion.”

For more than 84 years, SAIC’s Fashion Design department has publicly showcased its students’ collections each spring. Evolving from concept to creation in just two semesters, more than 200 innovative looks pushing the traditional boundaries of style will be on display, created by 83 sophomores, juniors and seniors. SAIC’s Fashion Design program boasts distinguished alumni, including Halston, Cynthia Rowley, Maria Pinto, Gary Graham and Creatures of the Wind.

This year’s showcase is anchored around the preposition “on,” a word that implies location, presence and intensity. As an underlying thread, it frames the looks featured in this year’s show and exhibition, which invite the viewer to engage with these innovative designs.

SAIC’s fashion exhibition will take place at Venue Six10 in the Spertus Institute, 610 South Michigan Avenue. As part of the exhibition, SAIC is hosting a runway show for invited guests to see work from senior students in a professionally produced fashion event. For more information on the exhibition, visit saic.edu/fashion2018.

About SAIC’s Fashion Design Department
SAIC’s Fashion program provides a creative and intellectual context that closely examines and reimagines the nature and potential of fashion. Since 1934, SAIC has been educating new generations of fashion designers who have gone on to produce some of the most inspired and respected collections around the globe. Students set groundbreaking trends as they are encouraged to fiercely respond to international influences, discovering and exploring new concepts and materials. Uniquely situated within a vibrant contemporary school of art and design, SAIC’s Fashion Design department offers undergraduate, graduate and post-baccalaureate programs that build on the relationships between art and fashion that have been evolving over the past century to reach an unprecedented level of connection in contemporary practice today.

SAIC’s Fashion program is housed within the Sage Studios for Fashion Design located in the historic Sullivan Center building. The 25,000-square-foot studio space includes the Fashion Resource Center, a hands-on collection of late-20th- and 21st-century designer garments and accessories representing extreme innovation, which enables SAIC students to explore the most progressive achievements in the world of dress and fashion.

About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
For more than 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program consistently ranking among the top programs in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate and post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, Jeff Koons and LeRoy Neiman.