From November 2022 to January 2023 the Seneca Canadian Fashion Diversity Project at the Seneca School of Fashion mounted an exhibition of the fascinating and innovative practice-led research of Seneca fashion professor, Philip Sparks. These garments are part of a larger corpus of research by professor Sparks that includes performative engagements, body measurements, and creation…
Tag: Fashion History

Redefining the “Standard”
By SCFDP student researcher: Anna Ludmirsky Life as a young person usually shapes and molds you into a projection of your future self, which usually begins with environment and role models. Specifically speaking on self-body image, as we grew older and began to consume media in a sponge-like manner, our subconscious self-loathing was gradually set…

Mara Buda’s Historical Recreation
A Neoclassical Recreation for a One of a Kind Doll A practice-led historical recreation project by Seneca Fashion Resource Centre student researcher Mara Buda. The purpose of this research project is for the fashion history student to experience and learn fashion history through the doing. Fashion is a fundamentally tactile and maker-driven medium, garments are designed,…

Angela Lin’s Experience of Toronto Fashion Week Spring 2023 at Fashion Art Toronto
By: Angela Lin (3rd Year Fashion Business Management student) The movie The Devil Wears Prada does not exaggerate the pace of life in the fashion industry; in reality, it is a highly frenetic place in which everyone is always RUNNING! During the 2022 edition of Toronto Fashion Week, which was organized by Fashion Art Toronto,…

Bonnets Get a Bad Wrap
By Rose de Paulsen A personal pastime of mine is watching costume analysis on YouTube. From the likes of Mina Le, Kaz Rowe, Karolina Żebrowska to Micarah Tewers, historical costume political commentary and garment creation feeds the inner historical costumer in me instilled from my experience at York University Theatre program. I remember in early 2020…

Textiles Abroad! Seneca Students Learn of Andean Culture
By: Rose de Paulsen In the heart of the Andes mountains sits Cusco, a city that holds a rich historical culture and an endless number of self-discoveries. It is a place I had the honour of going to in May through Seneca Abroad. I had previously never been on a plane and had never expected…

All Dolled Up
by Dale Peers While we might immediately think of dolls as a child’s plaything they have a firm place in fashion too. They have been used to educate, illustrate and inspire! The fashion doll was used to disseminate the latest fashion styles to potential clients with both life sized and smaller fashion dolls created. These…

Gordon Shadrach Lecture for the Seneca School of Fashion
On March 28, 2022, Canadian artist Gordon Shadrach gave a talk to students from the Fashion Studies (FST) Fashion Arts (FAA), Fashion Business (FAB), and Fashion Business Management (FBM) programs of the Seneca School of Fashion. In his inspiring and provocative talk, Shadrach covered topics such as the cultural meanings of specific garments like the…

POC Canadian Women Leading the Future of Fashion Magazines
These Black and BIPOC Canadian women have left their mark and let diversity into the fashion industry By: Rose de Paulsen When we think of diversity in fashion, our mind leaps first to the most visible aspects. We think of models, designers, influencers, and we often do not think of the people behind the scenes,…

Ribbon Skirts: Resilience with Every Ribbon
By Rose de Paulsen In February of last year Cecilia Nowell from Vogue.com covered a story out of Washington state where an Indigenous community was given body bags instead of PPE and Abigail Echo-Hawk (Pawnee) turned them into a garment that combines her resilience and the traditional ribbon work. Indigenous communities across North America have…