Professor, Media & Cultural Studies
Dept. of Communication, Media & Performance
Allegheny College
Box 45. 520 North Main Street
Meadville, PA 16335
EMAIL: iroy@allegheny.edu
FS101- A First Year Seminar on
FASHION, MEDIA & CULTURE (FALL '23)
The seminar for incoming first year students introduced them to college-level critical thinking, research, reading, and writing skills.
An added dimension to this section was that students were mentored by award-winning costume designer and Allegheny alumnus Uriel Gomez ('13), to turn their imagination into a fashion accessory and cut, sew and produce fashion totes.
D.I.Y Culture
Equipping students with D.I.Y skills like creating a mood board, cutting a pattern, sewing and piecing together a finished tote bag, helped students see what goes into making a small piece of fashion. It has given them the tools to now repurpose materials like the plentiful 'free' T-shirts they end up collecting, and fashion useful items like shopping or fashion totes. In the process, they will be contributing to the environmental sustainability goals at the college.
Experiential Learning
Linking the course content to this Experiential Learning content built in a different opportunity to develop hands-on transferable skills that also allowed students an early introduction to the Costume Shop in the Theater wing of our department. They can continue to develop design and sewing skills at the Allegheny College costume shop, with a shot at internships and small-scale entrepreneurship, because of an early start in building both critical and practical foundational skills in this area.