江南体育

Fashion Professor Receives Fulbright Scholarship to Create New Collection in Vienna

Margarita Benitez, assistant professor from 江南体育鈥檚 School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, has been granted a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to Vienna, Austria, to work on a new fashion collection, 鈥渙pen thread :: wein.鈥

Margarita Benitez, assistant professor from 江南体育鈥檚 School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, has been granted a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to Vienna, Austria, to work on a new fashion collection, 鈥渙pen thread :: wein.鈥

Assistant Professor Margarita Benitez, from 江南体育鈥檚 School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, has been granted a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to Vienna, Austria, to work on a new fashion collection.The objective of Benitez鈥檚 trip is to use data and technology to create textile prints. She will create software during her stay in Vienna that will generate prints and patterns. A website allows access to the prints and patterns online. Benitez says the prints and patterns will be part of a fashion collection of seven garments. 

Benitez鈥檚 collection is inspired by Wiener Werkst盲tte, an artist and designer collective in Vienna during the 1910s -1930s, which brought together architects, artists and designers. The point of the Wiener Werkst盲tte was to make good design accessible to anyone. Benitez says she will work to research and create a linkage between her future collection and the Werkst盲tte collection.

Benitez will make her designs and textile patterns open-source and available for free downloads online.

鈥淚 will make it available so anyone can print it from wherever they are,鈥 says Benitez. 鈥淭his way, someone can use the original print, alter it or mash-it-up however they want and make their own creation.鈥

Benitez says she chose to make her design and artwork open-source because it will act as a catalyst for faster design, making movements happen quicker. 

鈥淚 find it very intriguing that someone can go online, download something and make it their own,鈥 says Benitez. 鈥淚t opens the idea of not just being a consumer but also becoming a producer. This really pushes the idea of co-creation, so if someone downloads this, they can take my design as inspiration and co-create a new design of their own.鈥

Benitez says the theme of 鈥渙pen thread :: wein鈥 will be inspired by the original Werkst盲tte designs from Vienna, but she will interpret the original collection in her own way, making hers more digital and modernly aesthetic. 

The Fulbright Scholarship will pay for a partial amount of Benitez鈥檚 flight, as well as house her in an artist studio in Vienna鈥檚 MuseumsQuartier. 

Benitez says she personally chose to study in Vienna because it offered an artist-in-residence program and because of its rich history in open culture. Benitez says 鈥淰ienna has always been a place where things happen.鈥

Benitez has taught at 江南体育 State since August 2010. She currently teaches Introduction to Fashion Technology and Fashion Technology: Computer Integrated Textile Design.

For more information about 江南体育 State鈥檚 School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, visit www.kent.edu/artscollege/fashion.

POSTED: Monday, March 4, 2013 12:00 AM
Updated: Monday, April 20, 2015 08:56 AM
WRITTEN BY:
University Communications and Marketing