Featured Students, Alumni, and Faculty

“ First, I must say, LSU's Fashion department is extraordinary. I knew I had a good education in my time there, but I did not realize how strong it was until I arrived here. I had professors asking me where I learned to do certain things or where I learned certain techniques. Even my classmates who went to fashion schools here were impressed with how much we were taught. ”

Randi Plaisance graduated in 2022 with her degree in Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising with a concentration in Apparel Design.   After graduation, she moved to Paris to pursue a graduate school program at the International Fashion Academy.  She has just completed her Master of Arts degree in Contemporary Fashion Design and plans to remain in Paris and start her career. 

Randi tributes the TAM department with aiding in her success.  "First, I must say, LSU's Fashion department is extraordinary. I knew I had a good education in my time there, but I did not realize how strong it was until I arrived here. I had professors asking me where I learned to do certain things or where I learned certain techniques. Even my classmates who went to fashion schools here were impressed with how much we were taught."

She also shares that "If there are any students there now that may be overwhelmed with the workload or wondering why they are doing certain things, you can reassure them that it is all for a good reason; they will be more than prepared to enter the world of fashion"

Casey R. Stannard, Melanie Carrico, Sheri Dragoo, Ellen McKinney, Ashley Rougeaux-Burnes and Colleen Moretz

The global fashion industry is one of the most detrimental to the environment and accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions, according to a report by the European Parliament. Around 92 million tons of apparel end up in landfills each year — nearly 87% of the materials used to make apparel, according to the Global Fashion Agenda Pulse of the Fashion Industry report. Pollution from fashion comes at many stages of the apparel production process. It includes chemical runoff from dyeing textiles, carbon pollution from producing and transporting apparel and much more. Apparel design researchers are interested in effecting change by reducing the waste created by the fashion industry. One critical area that can be affected is the decrease and possible elimination of preproduction fabric waste.

When manufacturing apparel, each item has a pattern with multiple pieces laid on layers of fabric and cut out before sewing. In the cutting process, it is typical to have 10%-15% of the initial fabric thrown on the cutting room floor. While designers attempt to utilize most of the fabric, traditional patternmaking methods make it impossible to puzzle the pattern shapes together perfectly. Areas such as armholes and neckholes inherently create waste because of their shapes (Figure 1). Some companies utilize fabric waste from garments to make other products like insulation. Still, the remnants are thrown into the trash by and large. The disposal of fabric costs apparel firms money and creates a major environmental burden.

Some apparel designers have tried eliminating fabric waste by creating patterns with slightly modified shapes so that the pieces can be perfectly packed and no waste is produced (Figure 2). This technique is known as zero-waste design. The concept of zero-waste design is not new; many historical garments, such as Japanese kimonos or early shirts, were cut using simple shapes like rectangles so that all of the shapes could fit together on a fabric and utilize all the precious resources. However, as time passed, many designers turned away from these initial fabric-conserving practices.

While zero-waste design seems like an excellent approach to reducing preconsumer fabric waste, problems still result from this design choice. Because the pattern is designed to fit 100% of the fabric, there is no room to grow or shrink it to create a range of sizes (this process is called pattern grading). As only one size can be produced, zero-waste garments are often made to be oversized to accommodate the maximum number of potential consumers.

These challenges are where the design research team set to work four years ago. The team's goals were to create zero-waste patterns that appealed to consumers, were fitted to the body and had the ability to be made in a full range of sizes. The team turned to the Carrico Zero-Waste Banded Grading (CZWBG) technique to accomplish the range of sizes. Melanie Carrico, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, piloted this technique. In the CZWBG method, a zero-waste pattern is created with seam lines at key locations of the body. In each of these seam lines, a strip of fabric that varies in width is inserted. As the strips change in size, the pattern can grow or shrink; thus, a full range of sizes can be accomplished. The CZWBG method had been developed and tested with a few initial garments. Still, a wider range of apparel categories and garments using the technique was needed to help verify the approach. At this point, the design research team was formed. A group of six apparel design researchers with prior experience in other zero-waste techniques was assembled to work on testing and further developing the CZWBG technique. Each designer chose a different category of apparel to test, including menswear, children’s wear, plus size, athleisure, formal wear and outerwear.

Through multiple meetings and trial runs, over 20 peer-reviewed designs were accepted into juried exhibitions and a published article in the Sustainability, an international journal. The team verified and expanded the CZWBG technique. With the knowledge that zero-waste apparel can be graded into a full size range while still providing fitted and fashionable apparel across multiple categories, the research team started thinking about expanding the project's scope. Can the CZWBG method provide cost savings when manufactured? The team has recently secured funding for the next phase of this project and will investigate the CZWBG method using an apparel manufacturing factory to determine if this new, sustainable approach can be adopted by the larger apparel industry.

Design by Ashley Rougeaux-Burnes (2021)

Figure 1: A normal pattern for a basic dress with a collar and neck facing will waste fabric. The dress is cut on folded fabric. Image by Casey Stannard

Figure 2. This zero-waste children's dress pattern by Ellen McKinney wastes no fabric. Image by Colleen Moretz

Design by Melanie Carrico (2022)

One of our TAM Alumni, Stacy Caballero, is a costume designer with Marvel Studios and worked on the new Black Panther Wakanda Forever film. She shares her story of finding success in Hollywood and her focus to mentor future costume designers at LSU.

“ In my last year of undergrad, I took a costume design class as an elective and it opened up a whole new world of design to me. ”

“ Once I chose [fashion design] there was no turning back … It’s a medium I can use to express myself, feelings, stories. Fashion is a language, and clothes are the way you communicate. ”

Apparel Design senior Kaleb Duncan is known by Kei Ai in the fashion community. His alias, which comes from the phonetic spelling of his first and middle initials, “serves as a fragmentation” of himself as a designer.

LSU students may know him as the cheerful and joking cashier in the On-The Geaux store in the Student Union, where he works full time. 

Duncan took a break from school to focus on his craft, and uses his job at the Student Union to support his fashion endeavors. He plans to go back to school in the Fall of 2023. “I had a lot going on and I wanted to focus on me being a designer, so I pulled back from LSU to recenter myself,” Duncan said.

Duncan’s interest in fashion started in 2016, during his junior year of high school. While in an advanced IB art class, he started experimenting with clothing and learned how to work a sewing machine. He continued to self-teach himself through trial and error.

“Once I chose [fashion design] there was no turning back … It’s a medium I can use to express myself, feelings, stories,” Duncan said. “Fashion is a language, and clothes are the way you communicate.”

When he first came to LSU, Duncan planned to study electrical engineering. He switched to fashion because he felt more comfortable with it, and saw aspects of engineering in fashion design.

“Fashion is just engineering with fabric. [Designer Issey Miyake] went to school for architecture, and he uses his architecture and shows it in his work, and I feel that we are similar in that aspect,” Duncan said. “It’s blending two supposedly opposite fields into one beautiful product.”

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Formerly an LSU TAM Apparel Design student, Madi Meserole had the amazing privilege to have her designs shown by Flying Solo during Paris Fashion Week! The show took place at La Galerie Bourbon, a salon located a block away from the Arc De Triomphe, on September 30th, 2021. Her inspired designs caught the eye of both the Marie Claire Italia and Elle Italia publications and were featured in their respective magazines. 

The collection, named Optical Emotions, is a story of human feeling, celebrating the brain and how it processes the very emotions each of us feel and go through on a daily basis. Made of an avant-garde mix of velvets & vinyls, Optical Emotions is comprised of 8 total looks - each inspired and named after a unique emotion. The entire collection took just under a year to produce and was all made by hand. 

Madi now owns her own womenswear label, MEZ Atelier, and continues her work in Austin, Texas and is creating garments for clients that range from ready-to-wear to custom couture ball gowns.

Suzanne Perron St. Paul was featured in the January 2020 episode of LSU in NOLA.

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LSU alumnae Chelsey Blankenship and Annie Claire Bass use their southern style to grow their business.

The sisters started SoSis Boutique online in 2014. Blankenship, who also works in social media marketing and website development, uses her mass communication degree to help build their online presence.

While Blankenship uses her mass communication degree to help advertise the boutique, Bass uses her degree in fashion merchandising to buy and style for the business. The two sisters use their proximity to the University in promoting their brand and choosing the most appealing merchandise.

Southern sisters use their LSU degrees to build their business.

Originally from Austin, Madi decided to debut her first collection, Metamorphosis, in her home city in May of 2019. The collection was inspired by details of a butterfly wing as observed under a microscope. The contemporary show included 9 full looks consisting of iridescent bell bottoms, tunics, tabbed skirts and matching separates. While it was a lot of fun to do her own thing and a complete learning experience, putting together a show on her own came with it’s own unique set of frustrations and challenges. The show wouldn't have been possible without the support of her family and friends. At the end of the day, being able to watch her looks come to fruition and finally walk down the runway was a wonderful reward and payoff in itself. "With the experience I gained from this, I have a total new found respect for those in the fashion production side of the industry and highly encourage anyone wanting to branch out and do their own thing to take the challenge and go for it!" -Madison Meserole

Fashionably Austin published an article about Madi's collection on their site as well. 

FASHIONABLY AUSTIN ARTICLE

Owner and Designer at Natasha Marie Bridal. Natasha has 10+ years of experience in the bridal industry and 20 years of sewing experience. She has a Fashion Design Degree from LSU's Apparel Design program, has interned with New Orleans couturier designer Suzanne Perron St. Paul, completed a fashion field study in China, designed for former First Lady of Louisiana Supriya Jindal, and donated a custom red gown for the American Heart Association, Baton Rouge Chapter. 

Ashley Twigg and Divya Patel, both Apparel Design seniors, attended The Fashion Group International Scholarship Day held at the Dallas Trade Mart. Ashley is pictured here with her garment which was on display in the Grand Pavilion. The event which hosts a design competition awarding scholarship funds was attended by apparel design and merchandising students from universities across the country.

BATON ROUGE - Fashion was front and center in New York City last week, and LSU junior Katie Brunet experienced it like a celebrity. Brunet, an apparel design major from Baton Rouge, earned the trip to New York Fashion Week after she was selected by LSU Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising faculty. The immersive experience in New York City, hosted by IMG College Licensing and IMG’s fashion events division, included fashion shows and networking events at companies like Victoria’s Secret Pink.

“Attending New York Fashion Week is the dream of anyone in the industry, and it has been a personal dream of mine for many years. Getting to experience that in addition to being given so many networking opportunities and invaluable experiences was something I definitely did not want to pass up,” Brunet said. Brunet was one of 17 students participating, from 13 different universities around the country.

“ Attending New York Fashion Week is the dream of anyone in the industry, and it has been a personal dream of mine for many years. Getting to experience that in addition to being given so many networking opportunities and invaluable experiences was something I definitely did not want to pass up. ”

Alumna Suzanne Perron St. Paul has designed gowns for celebrities, brides, débutantes and Mardi Gras royalty. She recently gave the LSU Golden Girls a new look.

LSU College of Agriculture students in Dr. Casey Stannard's TAM 4037 Draping class made garments from recycled tent fabric.