University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Fashion Design and Merchandising (FDM) alumna Gabrielle Sanehira has been honored with two design awards for her garment submissions to the 2015 International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) Design Exhibition. Sanehira, who graduated in the spring of 2015, developed and completed the garments while still a FDM student under the guidance of Professor Ju-Young Kang.
For her garment entitled “Collected, Cut and Recreated Dress,” Sanehira was awarded the Apparel and Textile Education Xchange (ATEXINC) Award for Excellence in Marketable Textile Design. The garment design focused on creating an eco-friendly dress made out of recycled materials, specifically American Spirit cigarette boxes. Inspired by the concept of sustainability and motifs of Native American textiles, she weaved one-inch strips cut from the cigarette boxes to create dynamic patterns.
“In my designs I wanted to emphasize the untraditional materials I chose to work with,” said Sanehira. “With the cigarette dress, I aimed to redefine the boxes into something more playable by cutting them into strips and abstracting the original pattern to highlight the curves of the human form.”
Sanehira’s second garment entitled “Ortho-Litho Film” was awarded second place in the Cotton Incorporated Innovations in Cotton Design challenge. To create a modern surface design, Sanehira employed traditional analog photography and chemistry technology and ortho-litho film, a series of chemical and light exposures, cotton yarn, and sand.
“The professors and teachers I’ve learned from over the years helped to motivate and inspire me to push the parameters of what fashion can be,” Sanehira added. “The core design FDM classes enabled me with the skills used in making these garments. My work would also not have been possible without the FDM facilities and equipment I used.”
“As Gabrielle’s design mentor, I am so proud of her as well as our FDM program’s strengths, which are renowned on an international level,” said Kang. “In the undergraduate design competition, Gabrielle demonstrated her excellent capabilities and skills stemming from her learning at UH Mānoa as a promising fashion designer. I applaud her hard work, her remarkable achievements, and the fantastic job she did of representing UH Mānoa, the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences and the FDM program.
About the International Textile and Apparel Association
The International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) is the biggest international textile and apparel professional association, consisting of scholars, educators and students. The 2015 ITAA Design Exhibition drew 123 undergraduate design submissions from several international and national fashion universities. Only 29 percent of submissions were accepted and presented at the exhibition.
