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

On This Page

Kristin Mariani

Associate Professor, Adjunct

Contact

Bio

BFA, 1994, MFA, 2020, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions: Soledad, PRPGMX, Mexico City; DB14, Dallas; Dimensional Lines: Art + Dress, Evanston Art Center; The Arts Club, Chicago; Chicago Architecture Foundation; ArtStays 9, Ptuy, Slovenia; Audible at ESS, Chicago. Performances: Studio Gang, Chicago; MCA, Chicago; The Arts Club, Chicago; Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago; Free Dick Higgins, 214 Projects, Dallas; Costume Design: SITE/less, Chicago; MCA, Chicago; Roulette, NY; Audio Art Festival, Krakow, Poland; Ingenuity Fest, Cleveland; The Kitchen, NY; Joyce Theatre, NY. Publications: Bridge; Time Out Chicago; Art Forum; Front Row Magazine; New City, Chicago; Allure Magazine.

Artist Statement

My practice is an ongoing conversation between design and art. I acknowledge the slippery distinctions between the two disciplines, and my investigations unfold in this unstable territory. Through the craft of making clothes, I deploy aesthetic strategies, skill-based knowledge, and text to probe the historical, material, and labor-oriented underpinnings encapsulated in any effort to clothe a person. In my recent series of dresses, titled Text Toiles, I address intimacy, care, language and boundaries, and question how the production of gender is figured through fashion, place, and labor.

 

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

1491

Credits

3

Description

Fashion Design I builds the skills and talents required to achieve creative fashion. This class teaches the design fundamentals of the integrated core fashion design curriculum. Students will engage multiple skills to create individual, visionary, unconventional garments, and later, collections. Through a series of projects, students explore form, silhouette, volume, and research in design to arrive at a personal point-of-view in fashion. This course will specifically ask students to work conceptually and to develop research methodologies in their design work. Based on this inquiry, students generate sketches and surface treatments to refine their unique silhouettes and material manipulations. No prerequisite.

Class Number

1532

Credits

3

Description

Fashion Design I builds the skills and talents required to achieve creative fashion. This class teaches the design fundamentals of the integrated core fashion design curriculum. Students will engage multiple skills to create individual, visionary, unconventional garments, and later, collections. Through a series of projects, students explore form, silhouette, volume, and research in design to arrive at a personal point-of-view in fashion. This course will specifically ask students to work conceptually and to develop research methodologies in their design work. Based on this inquiry, students generate sketches and surface treatments to refine their unique silhouettes and material manipulations. No prerequisite.

Class Number

1018

Credits

3

Description

Fashion Design I builds the skills and talents required to achieve creative fashion. This class teaches the design fundamentals of the integrated core fashion design curriculum. Students will engage multiple skills to create individual, visionary, unconventional garments, and later, collections. Through a series of projects, students explore form, silhouette, volume, and research in design to arrive at a personal point-of-view in fashion. This course will specifically ask students to work conceptually and to develop research methodologies in their design work. Based on this inquiry, students generate sketches and surface treatments to refine their unique silhouettes and material manipulations. No prerequisite.

Class Number

1534

Credits

3

Description

The Integral Fashion Design Studio is an immersive 6-credit, co-taught class that builds up the skills and talents required to achieve creative fashion. Taken in the spring, it integrates construction and applied design research. Students will create one look consisting of a top and skirt that express a concept through garment. Students will also hone their ability to articulate concepts and speak to their work. Students discover how to express conceptual design through garment-making methodologies by combining their design research, shape development, and creative explorations. The garments are fitted on models, and executed in both muslin and fabric. Pre-req: FASH2001, FASH2002

Class Number

1382

Credits

6