{"id":58757,"date":"2014-03-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/april-fashion-show-at-uri-to-highlight-students-designs-talent-hard-work-april-11\/"},"modified":"2014-03-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T00:00:00","slug":"april-fashion-show-at-uri-to-highlight-students-designs-talent-hard-work-april-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/03\/april-fashion-show-at-uri-to-highlight-students-designs-talent-hard-work-april-11\/","title":{"rendered":"April fashion show at 溏心vlog免费B站 to highlight students\u2019 designs, talent, hard work, April 11"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\u201cFashion in the 401\u201d celebration for alums, businesses, groups that partner with Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design<\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 20, 2014 \u2013 Twakelee Gborkorquellie can whip up a dress in two hours. That talent comes in handy when a last-minute invitation to, say, a wedding lands in her mailbox.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI\u2019ve been cutting fabric for myself for so long I don\u2019t need to measure,\u201d she says. \u201cI do everything by eye.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe 19-year-old junior at the 溏心vlog免费B站 will get a chance to showcase her clothes \u2013 and design skills \u2013 at the 11th annual Spring Splash fashion gala April 11 on the Kingston campus.<\/p>\n


\nTwakelee and a dozen other students in the Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design, or TMD, are participating in the event, called \u201cFashion in the 401\u201d \u2013 a play off the state\u2019s area code.<\/p>\n

Dinner, with a cash bar, will be held from 6 to 7:45 p.m., at the Alumni Center, 73 Upper College Road. The fashion show will follow at 8 p.m. in Edwards Hall across the street.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe entire department is looking forward to the fashion show and awards ceremony,\u201d says Linda Welters, co-chair of the textiles program, part of the College of Human Science and Services. \u201cIt\u2019s always a fun night that celebrates the achievements of student designers, alums and the businesses and organizations that partner with the department.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nTwakelee\u2019s passion for fashion started as a little girl growing up in Liberia, her homeland. She watched her mother and aunt sew duvets and was soon crocheting dresses for her Barbies.<\/p>\n


\nWhen she was 8, Twakelee and her family moved to Providence, where she continued to hone her craft. During her junior year at Classical High School, her sister bought her a $150 sewing machine. The Brother CS6000 changed her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned how to be a great sewer,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t see myself doing anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nIn a few months, she was sewing dresses, pants, wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses for friends. Her family wanted her to pursue a more stable profession \u2013 law, medicine, nursing \u2013 but the budding designer decided to \u201cjust go for my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe 溏心vlog免费B站 program was a good fit, offering design classes as well as marketing and business courses to prepare for the highly competitive fashion industry, where designers rise and fall like politicians. Many graduates find jobs as production assistants and sourcing specialists for designers and manufacturers.<\/p>\n


\n \u201cAt 溏心vlog免费B站 we\u2019re not looking to be couture designers but learning how to graduate and find a job in the fashion business,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of people like me have big dreams, but initially we need to use our skills to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nTwakelee is working late into the night to prepare for the show. She\u2019ll walk the catwalk and also have others model her clothes. She\u2019s showing nine outfits from three collections: wedding gowns, casual evening wear, and dresses, including her \u201cStarburst,\u201d an explosion of green, pink and red inspired by the chewy candy.<\/p>\n


\nShe describes her work as \u201cfeminine but tasteful, fun but elegant, simple but complex,\u201d with subtle details that take skill and persistence to perfect. Her special design is a dress made with one top-to-bottom seam in back. \u201cThe dress molds to the body,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n


\nAfter graduating next year, she hopes to fly to Paris to work for Balmain, a high-end fashion house that makes clothes worn by Hollywood celebrities. If that doesn’t work out, she\u2019ll knock on the doors of New York apparel companies. <\/p>\n


\n \u201cThe best thing about being a fashion designer is that you can make your idea a reality,\u201d she says. \u201cEvery time I finish a garment I feel great. It\u2019s art.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe cost for the dinner and fashion show is $100. For the show only, the cost is $20 for the public and $15 for students. To RSVP, contact Nina Mathewson at 401-874-4574 by April 2. Checks can be mailed to Ms. Mathewson at 303 Quinn Hall, 溏心vlog免费B站, Kingston, RI, 02881. <\/p>\n


\nPhoto above: Twakelee Gborkorquellie, 19, of Providence, a junior at the 溏心vlog免费B站 who will show her collection April 11 at Spring Splash on the Kingston campus. Twakelee has won a $1,000 溏心vlog免费B站 undergraduate research grant to design and make garments to submit to a fashion show sponsored by the International Textiles and Apparel Association. <\/p>\n


\nPhotos by Joe Giblin.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFashion in the 401\u201d celebration for alums, businesses, groups that partner with Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 20, 2014 \u2013 Twakelee Gborkorquellie can whip up a dress in two hours. That talent comes in handy when a last-minute invitation to, say, a wedding lands in her mailbox. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}