News . Feature Stories . Students capture two of the top prizes in museum's surreal design competition
November 15, 2014
Entries impressed judges with creative interpretations, craftsmanship
CIA students captured two of the top three prizes in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Made Surreal—A Fashion Design Competition on Nov. 7.
To the cheers of more than 200 attendees, Jewelry + Metals major Victoria Mearini ’17 took second place modeling her own dendritic design, while Sculpture + Expanded Media major Leah Yochman ’16 and Photography + Video major Eric Payne ’17 took third place for their creation modeled by Jelena Czijcvi. Angela Oster ’05 was also a finalist and took to the runway wearing her own design.
The students approached fashion design from multiple disciplines. Although her major is Jewelry + Metals, Mearini made her tree-like piece in an elective Sewing and Fabrication class taught by Professor Tina Cassara, co-chair of the Sculpture + Expanded Media Department.
Yochman and Payne both worked on creative fashion assignments last year when they participated in CIA’s IN THE DARK competition. That project required them to incorporate light into wearable technology.
The museum received more than 50 entries from designers in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York and selected 20 finalists to compete before a live audience at its month MIX event. The competition was inspired by the museum’s exhibition Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography, on view through January 11, 2015.
According to the museum, participants were judged on “the creative and original interpretation of surrealist techniques and themes through fashion, as well as their craftsmanship and quality of execution.”
Judges included David Raymond, art collector and filmmaker; Doris Raymond, vintage clothing guru and owner of Los Angeles vintage store The Way We Wore (featured in the Smithsonian Channel hit “L.A. Frock Stars”); Jean Druesedow, director of the Kent State University Museum; and Barbara Tannenbaum, curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
View CIA Photographer Robert Muller’s photograph of Payne, Yochman and Czijcvi here; Click through a slideshow of images from the event here; and watch a video story produced by Cleveland.com here.
Above: Victoria Mearini makes her way down the runway. Photo by Robert Muller.
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