A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Caroline Marie Bellios

Associate Professor, Adjunct

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Contact

Bio

Caroline Bellios is a professor of fashion design and history. Her current research ranges from 19th century hair jewelry, embodiment, and the transformative nature of touch, to the potential of fashion in the museum space, the memory space, and as a platform for inclusivity. With colleagues in the city, Caroline is a founder of the Chicago Fashion Lyceum, a collaborative body for fashion discourse. Lyceum provides a platform for research sharing and collegial camaraderie and continues expanding this work of community within our local spaces, nationally, and internationally. Caroline’s recent writing has explored the work of exhibition maker Judith Clark in Bloomsbury’s publication Fashion, Dress and Post-PostModernity, and how we dress and present our bodies in Fairchild Books’ The Meanings of Dress. She would also like to hear stories about your grandmother.

Personal Statement

WE ARE ALL SPEAKING FASHION RIGHT NOW

Fashion is immediate and present; it is now. Every culture engages in some form of adornment of the body. Deep in our mitochondria is a human need to dress ourselves, to paint ourselves, to festoon our bodies with shiny things, to expand and contract the volume of space we inhabit. We are not able to choose our body’s shapes or colors, but we do choose our clothing—the second skin that we drape over the skin we were born in. It is a choice.  

We can dress ourselves to highlight our individuality or to identify ourselves with a group and form a bond with others. We can wear garments that tell the truth about who we are or we can choose to dress in a way that hides our identities. We can dress ourselves to appear as the person we want to become. However we dress, others will judge us based on both our inherited appearance and our chosen one. They will evaluate who we are based on what we're wearing, and we will do the same to them. Fashion touches everything else in the world because fashion touches us all of the time.

In spite of the fundamental role fashion plays in human communication and how important I believe it to be, I am not actually teaching fashion. I am teaching identity creation, critical thinking, empathy toward humanity and toward difference. I am teaching students to pay close attention to people, and teaching them to pay close attention to themselves, asking them to consider their values and how those values are reflected in their work and to pay attention to the impact of their choices. I focus on helping them learn how to say something personal through specificity and demonstrate how that specificity can bring universal connection. I listen to them intently to help them tell the stories that are important to them. I remind them that what makes their work engaging, even when it addresses ideas others have previously presented, is that it is filtered through their individual point of view and their unique life experience.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This is an introductory look into fashion. Students will explore basic design skills
and processes, and work with various materials used in constructing garments. Both traditional and non-traditional materials will be explored through techniques and exercises related to the body. Students will learn how the tools and equipment for hand and machine sewing functions, and its role in constructing garments. A critical overview of fashion introduces students to various practical and theoretical approaches to understand and explore fashion within an art context.

Class Number

1550

Credits

3

Description

If you could only be seen in one outfit for the rest of your life ? what would it be? How would you represent who you are through your choice of silhouette, color, pattern, and texture? In this course we will take a look at art?s ability to freeze moments, and garments, in time. What did the sitter (or the artist) chose to clothe the body? How did fashion and its power of communication function within the time the art work was made? What choices did the artist make to idealize or change their representation of the garments?

In statues from Ancient Greece fabrics flow around bodies like liquids, 18th century subjects were often painted in swathes of fabric meant to suggest ancient ideals through similar (impossible) textiles, and today Kara Walker uses those same floating fabrics on bodies to critique less than ideal idealists. To 19th century Impressionists the urgency of Modernity could only be represented by using contemporary garments, today Kehinde Wiley dresses a man on a horse in a hoodie. What clues tell us a figure is a warrior or a captive in work of the Nazca from ancient Peru? How can we read hairstyles in Ukiyo-e paintings from 17th century Japan? What do Jeffery Gibson and Nick Cave want us to see when they create coverings for bodies? And what was Amy Sherald trying to tell us about Michelle Obama?

We will utilize the collections of the Art Institute, The Field Museum, and others around the city to look closely, sketch, and research. Students will read, lead discussions, write daily reflections, explore through making, and develop skills in critical looking leading to two short research papers examining works of their choice.

In statues from Ancient Greece fabrics flow around bodies like liquids, 18th century subjects were often painted in swathes of fabric meant to suggest ancient ideals through similar (impossible) textiles, and today Kara Walker uses those same floating fabrics on bodies to critique less than ideal idealists. To 19th century Impressionists the urgency of Modernity could only be represented by using contemporary garments, today Kehinde Wiley dresses a man on a horse in a hoodie. What clues tell us a figure is a king in Incan pottery? How can we read hairstyles in Ukiyo-e paintings from Japan? What do Jeffery Gibson and Nick Cave want us to see when they create coverings for bodies? And what was Amy Sherald trying to tell us about Michelle Obama?

We will visit the collections of the Art Institute, The Field Museum, and other collections around the city to look closely, sketch, and research. Students will read, lead discussions, write daily reflections, and develop skills in critical looking leading to two short research papers examining works of their choice.

Class Number

1099

Credits

3

Description

If you could only be seen in one outfit for the rest of your life ? what would it be? How would you represent who you are through your choice of silhouette, color, pattern, and texture? In this course we will take a look at art?s ability to freeze moments, and garments, in time. What did the sitter (or the artist) chose to clothe the body? How did fashion and its power of communication function within the time the art work was made? What choices did the artist make to idealize or change their representation of the garments?

In statues from Ancient Greece fabrics flow around bodies like liquids, 18th century subjects were often painted in swathes of fabric meant to suggest ancient ideals through similar (impossible) textiles, and today Kara Walker uses those same floating fabrics on bodies to critique less than ideal idealists. To 19th century Impressionists the urgency of Modernity could only be represented by using contemporary garments, today Kehinde Wiley dresses a man on a horse in a hoodie. What clues tell us a figure is a warrior or a captive in work of the Nazca from ancient Peru? How can we read hairstyles in Ukiyo-e paintings from 17th century Japan? What do Jeffery Gibson and Nick Cave want us to see when they create coverings for bodies? And what was Amy Sherald trying to tell us about Michelle Obama?

We will utilize the collections of the Art Institute, The Field Museum, and others around the city to look closely, sketch, and research. Students will read, lead discussions, write daily reflections, explore through making, and develop skills in critical looking leading to two short research papers examining works of their choice.

In statues from Ancient Greece fabrics flow around bodies like liquids, 18th century subjects were often painted in swathes of fabric meant to suggest ancient ideals through similar (impossible) textiles, and today Kara Walker uses those same floating fabrics on bodies to critique less than ideal idealists. To 19th century Impressionists the urgency of Modernity could only be represented by using contemporary garments, today Kehinde Wiley dresses a man on a horse in a hoodie. What clues tell us a figure is a king in Incan pottery? How can we read hairstyles in Ukiyo-e paintings from Japan? What do Jeffery Gibson and Nick Cave want us to see when they create coverings for bodies? And what was Amy Sherald trying to tell us about Michelle Obama?

We will visit the collections of the Art Institute, The Field Museum, and other collections around the city to look closely, sketch, and research. Students will read, lead discussions, write daily reflections, and develop skills in critical looking leading to two short research papers examining works of their choice.

Class Number

2391

Credits

3

Description

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Class Number

2227

Credits

3