CAITLIN HARTMAN

SURVIVAL | Caitlin Hartman has always been passionate about design and the environment. Through her time in the apparel design program, Caitlin has evolved her understanding of fashion to include sustainability. While interning for a non-profit in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, she became interested in ethically made products. This experience inspired her to pursue a Sustainable Studies minor. Last fall, Caitlin studied at the Accademia Italiana in Florence, where she was inspired by her studies in art as a way to communicate.

This past summer, while interning in NYC, Caitlin began studying the relationship between our industrialized society and how it interacts with nature. Her collection, Survival, is inspired by the complexity of this relationship, illustrating through fashion how these opposing areas both compete and harmonize with one another. The goal of her line is to express the issues we see today with the struggle to find peace between development and the environment. In order to illustrate this complex relationship, the collection is composed of synthetic materials like vinyl, neoprene, and mesh in combination with livings plants. Her line begins with nature being very kept and in control, with function and structure as the main focus. As the line develops, the plants become less manicured and begin to overgrow the structure they are a part of.