INTRODUCTION

Apparel Design is thrilled to celebrate the Class of 2023 with EPILOGUE [23], the first in-person show of senior thesis project work since 2019. Created in community, this joyful presentation in RISD’s Fleet Library showcases a yearlong process of development and, through performance, runway, installations and film, activates the propositions seniors introduced this spring at the Woods-Gerry exhibition PROLOGUE [23].

The works showcase multifaceted forms of communication through clothing and adornment and initiate propositions that harbor inclusive perceptions of our diverse bodies. Exploring through sculpture, uniformity, materiality, performance and activism, seniors embrace physicality and bring experience and gesture to the foreground of practice. Their research processes, concepts and missions for their work include the emotional value of clothing, how the garments are made, what materials are used and why, and the life cycles or expectancies of a garment.

Using their manifestos as a starting point for their thesis projects, seniors reestablish what a “collection” constitutes in the context of their thesis projects while considering their positioning as artists, designers/creatives. Some projects live and breathe between histories, ancestral heritages and future imaginings; some engage sensorial experiences, rituals, spirits and presence; and other projects meticulously work within systems and structures and commit to finding presence or flow through sense-making, developing immersive processes that connect with time, labor and materiality. Then there are projects that utilize the language of fashion, clothing and the systems within the current fashion industry as a means to critique the very discipline itself. Still others hone in on one particular process or subject—exaggeration, imprints of beauty, celebrity culture, garments as primal reflections of fleetingness and the acceptance of love and hate as nourishment for change.

Finally, we have seniors whose projects are wholly collaborative. As they work against the notion of the star designer, they advocate for active listening and working in dialogue, and in doing so immerse themselves in responsive processes as a means to empower the wearer.

EPILOGUE [23] embodies the urgency of this time and offers new outcomes, specializations and hybridized or interdisciplinary models for clothing and adornment. As such, rather than presenting the show as a seamless whole, having lived through times of extreme closeness and separation during the pandemic, we are celebrating an exuberance of fracture alongside a deep dive into craft, materiality, process and context.

Apparel Design’s faculty and staff celebrate these 23 seniors who have demonstrated tremendous resilience, positivity and tenacity through pressing times. We have no doubt that they will all make significant contributions to a more equitable, thoughtful and joy-filled world. Enjoy the show!