Becoming

One of Professor Julian Crooks’ assignments is creating a vision board. It’s an artful collage filled with images clipped from magazines, representing things they hope to achieve in their lives such as professional success, personal success, and these often include photos of luxurious measures of commercial success and influence–whatever they dream of becoming. Typically, this is one of their first assignments, which she has been asking them to complete since 2020.

And what a year of firsts it has been for the fashion programs at Harcum. As a result of Harcum’s Student Exhibition, 2022 graduate Diana Cornejo was invited to show a 12-piece collection at Philly Fashion Week, the first time in the program’s history that a student designer was selected for the full runway. Then, during the “Next Up” student designer competition, sophomore Brianna Ruffin emerged as the winner of a recycling project sponsored by FabScrap, for crafting and showing an outfit made from ten pounds of found material. Thirdly, the world-renowned haute couture designer Prajjé Oscar, a contestant on season 19 of Project Runway, started his classroom teaching career last fall as an adjunct faculty member.

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As the Program Director for both Fashion Design and Merchandising, Crooks understands that having vision is critical within the industry. There’s no career in the fashion world worth having without vision-infused work.

When she assumed responsibility for running those programs, Crooks realized the program’s recent trajectory of successful outcomes resulted from a vision she had of what she could accomplish if given the opportunity and time to lead.

“I did imagine these wonderful things happening,” Crooks said. “To bring Harcum designers and the program this level of recognition is the result of everything I envisioned, that I knew in my heart we could do.”

Where there's a will

For Diana Cornejo, her Harcum journey started in North Carolina. The former active-duty Marine, now a reservist, looked for schools where she lived. Finding none, she took her search online, and, voilà! She discovered Harcum College offered a two-year fashion degree and began taking classes via Zoom in the Fall of 2020. “The pandemic was a good time to focus on my studies. I had taken apparel courses in high school. I set up my studio at home and doubled up on my sewing classes at Harcum.”

“Diana was special in so many ways—motivated, self-sufficient, thoughtful in her design, advanced,” Crooks said. “Because of that, I allowed her to continue to study remotely for her second year.”

When it came time for the Student Fashion Exhibition in April of 2022, Cornejo’s unique collection turned heads. The inspiration for a collection featuring waders, rompers with pockets, and a goldtrimmed transparent raincoat came during a fishing trip when she noticed the males all had cool gear to wear with gadgets, but she had nothing special.

She wanted something to wear on a fishing trip that was practical and attractive. Plus, all the pockets in their clothes, to stuff things into. She chose sturdy fabrics and added utility fasteners— the kind you find on backpacks and camping gear.

“All the unusual fabrics she used such as the clear vinyl,” Crooks explained, “are incredibly difficult to work with.”

But toil she did. As a result, Philly Fashion Week organizers noticed her efforts and originality, inviting her to show a full twelve pieces in September. She built out her collection to include waders in brown, green, and beige; skort rompers in white and beige; shorts in brown, green, and beige; short waders in green and brown; and the gold-trimmed see-through slicker (with squishy sea creatures tucked into the pockets for fun.)

Despite needing to create nine more pieces over the summer, and also the fact that she was moving, starting classes at Jefferson, and needing to find a living arrangement in Philly, she persisted. “I wasn’t sure I was going to pull it off. At one point, I was living with a friend and sewing in her basement. When they came to see the show, her dad said proudly, ‘She made that in my basement.’”

Now she's determined to complete her bachelor’s degree, and she's participating in a student competition sponsored by Mimaki to conceive of a print design, which the company reproduces onto a range of fabrics for the student to use in a fashion creation, a form-fitting garment perfect for motorcycle riding. All of which sounds on-brand for Cornejo, who wants to design attractive but also practical clothes for adventurous women committed to looking fantastic.

“Doing Philly Fashion Week opened up doors for me,” she said with gratitude for Julian Crooks believing in her. “Now I get recognized by other designers who say things like, ‘It’s so amazing you are doing such great work.’”

Making something from nothing

Using ten pounds of used garments and remnants from FabScrap, second-year Fashion Design major Briana Ruffin created a recycled head-to-toe look, topped with a denim jacket, and won first place in Philly Fashion Week’s “Next Up” student competition on September 21. She beat out nine other students, most from four-year schools, winning $1,000 and a private consultation with Fern Mallis, founder of New York Fashion Week.

The denim jacket was nothing short of ingenious, made from four different pairs of jeans, the sleeves comprising two different pairs and the cuffs of the sleeves made from another pair. “I wanted to give it a distressed denim 90s look,” she said. From the back of the jacket another pair of jeans is visible with pants pockets lining the hem.

One of the contest’s goals was to create as little waste as possible. Ruffin had to submit photos of the materials she picked up so the judges could see how much she actually used. Since she picked a denim skirt in addition to the jeans, she decided to wear it to the competition because it was a cool reuse and represented FabScrap as well.

Ruffin was as shocked as anyone by her win since she had never done upcycling before. Besides the tight time frame, she encountered other complications. She was supposed to have had two fittings with her model, but the model was on the runway during New York City Fashion Week for the first fitting and nothing fit at the second fitting, so three days before the show, she was scrambling to make the outfit work.

“In such a short amount of time, I have gained so much at Harcum,” Ruffin said. “I was glad Harcum got some recognition. It’s a great program.”

Giving his all

Some might think a talented designer as in demand as Prajjé O. Jean Baptiste, or “Prajjé Oscar” as clients and devotees know him, wouldn’t be able to carve out time for Harcum students. And they’d be dead wrong.

For several years, he has been deeply connected to Harcum fashion students behind the scenes, conducting muslin critiques and doing final reviews of students’ clothing lines before capstone events.

Last September, he began teaching in the classroom as an adjunct faculty member.

He wants a connection to the next generation of fashion designers because it stems from his dedication to the fashion industry. “These are the things you make time for,” Jean-Baptiste explained. “I take mentorship seriously. I have had and still have incredible mentors.”

He’s been on television as a “Project Runway” contestant, and his work has gained critical attention worldwide. Nevertheless, he was completely down-toearth and wholly engaged with returning students gathered for FSH202, a required second-year class in which the budding creators of couture develop their professional portfolios.

He advised his charges that a good portfolio is critical to their success. He also reminded them of the importance of digital media to promote their work and sell the fashion industry. He has established a fierce presence on numerous social media platforms including Instagram and Facebook, which he himself manages.

Because Harcum is an associate’s degree-granting school, he emphasized that graduates can be very proud of themselves for following the path they chose. “Here, you will have accomplished in two years what took other students four years to do.”

In view of these fashion-program firsts, because of the dedicated instructors, and the quality, experiential opportunities offered, it’s conceivable that Harcum students are actually accomplishing more in two years than they would at a four-year school.