Featured Students and Alumni
Avant-garde Alligators
The LSU AgCenter recently featured one of our students!
The article reads: "Susan Lindrew, a senior majoring in textiles, apparel and merchandising, has been working on a research project on experimental patternmaking to use the typically discarded portions of alligator hides in fashion.
LSU Department of Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising faculty member Casey Stannard is her advisor for the project. Their research explores experimental patternmaking techniques that could help reduce waste and give a purpose to the underutilized leather that would typically end up on the cutting room floor."

– Photo by Annabelle Lang/LSU College of Agriculture
“ I think this research could have a significant impact on the fashion industry. It could potentially reduce waste and change the way we think about patternmaking and design. It's exciting to be a part of something that could make a difference. ”
TAMs Own Les Voyaguer
One of our current TAM students, JM Maleszewski, was recently selected to be a member of the 2023-2024 Les Voyaguers for the LSU College of Agriculture. She shared her experience and inspiration for the application process with us!
I love fashion, but I love it even more when I know I make something that is sustainable and has meaning behind it.
JM Maleszewski
"When I was undergoing the Les Voyager process in the college of Agriculture, they asked we design a costume that highlights values of the college we liked most. I wasn’t sure what to do, but then I remembered my orientation meeting with Ms. Sapp as a TAM major. During the presentation she gave us on what to expect, I realized we were in a room surrounded by boxes filled with neck ties. We asked her why there were so many, and her response was “someone donated them. So we’re going to find a home for them here somewhere.”
It stuck with me since then how driven the College of Agriculture was with sustainability and I knew that I wanted to create something that reflected that, along with its passion for uniqueness and perseverance to see tasks through. So, it felt natural to make a dress out of thrifted neck ties to show my appreciation to their values and program. I love fashion, but I love it even more when I know I make something that is sustainable and has meaning behind it."
Past Features
Stacy Caballero
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. ”
Kaleb Duncan
“ 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.”
Alumna in Paris Fashion Week
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.
2020 Hemline for Hearts
Graduate student Alexandra Forestier and undergraduates Olivia Lapuyade, Kaleb Duncan, Chloe Hogan and Lea Disimone participated in the 2020 Hemline for Hearts event.
LSU in NOLA
Suzanne Perron St. Paul was featured in the January 2020 episode of LSU in NOLA.
Annie Claire Bass
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.
Madi Meserole
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.
Natasha Miller Popich
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.
T-Shirt Turnaround
On April 1st, 2019, the Ag Residential College held the T-shirt Turnaround Fashion show. The show focused on conservation and repurposing unused t-shirts.
The winners were:
- Caitlin Kittila for the Individual entry
- Olivia Lapuyade for the Individual Timed entry.
- Caitlin Kittila and Abby Goddard for the Group Timed Entry
FGI Scholarship Day
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.
LSU Student Attended New York Fashion Week
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. ”
LSU STUDENT ATTENDED NEW YORK FASHION WEEK
FALSU seamlessly rocks Hemline for Hearts
The Fashion Association at LSU, also known as FALSU, partnered with the American Heart Association for the 2019 Hemline for Hearts event. Students in the LSU College of Agriculture Department of Textiles, Apparel and Design construction outfits using red and white paper hearts during the association’s Go Red for Women luncheon at the Baton Rouge River Center.
Students submitted their original fashion designs, and representatives with the American Heart Association chose five designs to be built.
LSU Golden Girls New Look
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.
Dress Fete Winners
The Shops at Canal Place hosted a fashion event Friday, (Dec 7) inspired by the New Orleans Tricentennial. Canal Place's Style Board showcased the best of their student designers in an event meant to offer these style board members the opportunity to meet and learn from New Orleans fashion industry insiders.
Style Board members included: Tracee Dundas, New Orleans Fashion Week founder; Reagan Charleston, Southern Charm cast member; Angelle Marix, Blogger - Dashing Darlin'; Michelle West, Actor and Model; Caitlyn Milligan, Blogger- Milligan Movement; Jennifer Palpallatoc, Blogger - Haute of the Rack and Bently Graham, Visual Designer.
Tent Fashion Project
LSU College of Agriculture students in Dr. Casey Stannard's TAM 4037 Draping class made garments from recycled tent fabric.