This Spring, TrueToForm partnered with two universities—Savannah College of Arts and Design (SCAD) and the College of DuPage—to assist with their students’ design and fashion endeavors.
In our partnership with SCAD, senior design students used the TrueToForm app to collect models’ measurements for their annual fashion show. Each spring, SCAD organizes this fashion show to highlight seniors’ and graduate students’ innovative designs. Before last year’s show, SCAD invited over 25 industry professionals to speak to their students, including fashion editors from Vogue and GQ, independent designers, and creative directors. With such expert assistance, students are able to create industry-changing designs, like one student who created a dress of laser-printed leather, created in the school’s 3D printing lab. TrueToForm partnered with SCAD students and professors to help student designs come to life efficiently and easily.
In the semester leading up to the fashion show, a structured process guides the students from sketches and mood boards to choosing fabrics to creating their final looks. Each senior creates a complete collection of at least five looks, and from those looks, the most impressive are chosen to be debuted. The show highlights skills like construction, finish, and fit, but equally encourages individual expression and personalization of the collections. Students are inspired by their identities, histories, and experiences to create stimulating, emotional collections.
In the past, SCAD students had to manually measure their models, which took up valuable time that could otherwise be spent on design work. This year, models can scan themselves using the TrueToForm mobile app. With access to the TrueToForm dashboard, seniors can now receive these scans and measurements remotely, allowing them to create their designs more efficiently and accurately.
Our partnership with the College of DuPage supports the university's Fashion Promotion Class’ 2024 fashion show. As part of the College of DuPage’s Fashion Studies program, this class offers students the opportunity to plan, promote, and produce a fashion show with a corresponding social media campaign. Students research variations in the way fashion is promoted and choose to represent their designs uniquely. TrueToForm is now being introduced to College of DuPage students and professors to support these efforts.
In last year’s fashion show, close to one hundred student-designed pieces of clothing were displayed. Each year, the show is entirely student-run, with student models, photographers and videographers, social media managers, marketers, and designers. The objective of the show is for all students to foster their creative growth and own their passions, from inspiration development to sourcing fabrics to fittings to the finalization of their lines. Some students choose to develop their line around a certain material or highlight a specific color. Others pick a general theme, such as historical costumes, sustainability, origami, or gender fluidity, for their clothing line to exude, or draw inspiration from a specific decade, designer, or making technique.
Ariana, a design student at College of DuPage, spoke about using TrueToForm measurements to modify her patterns:
"TrueToForm helped relieve stress from outfit alterations. I was able to focus on other key issues and trust the app to provide accurate measurements for my models." - Ariana, design student at College of DuPage
In the end, each student creates at least four completely unique, personalized items. In past shows, each designer would manually take measurements of their models with measuring tape. This process can be tedious, time-consuming, and involved. This year, using our app and dashboard to scan and share measurements securely, the merchandising students are scanning their models and sharing the measurement data; meanwhile, fashion design students receive the scan data and use it to inform their design process. The process of measurement has been narrowed down to mere minutes, with the entire scan, including 60+ body measurements, occupying as little as five minutes of the designer or model’s time. Here is the program director, Nelson Cantada's, take on TrueToForm’s assistance in the design process:
"Students working on garments for our Spring fashion show are required to work on a tight schedule to take their designs ideas from concept to fully realized garments in fashion fabric. In working with TrueToForm’s body scanning app, our students are able to approach the time-consuming process of garment prototyping and fitting more efficiently using exact model measurements. This benefits our design students by allowing them more time for creative design exploration while also exposing them to new technology driven processes that are shaping the future of the fashion industry." - Nelson Cantada, Department Chair, College of DuPage Fashion Studies
We are honored to help SCAD and College of DuPage students bring their creative visions to life throughout this process, and look forward to similar collaborations in the future. For educational institutions interested in partnering with TrueToForm for student projects, please reach out to our team here.