Mikhayla Sabo’s Senior Collection
By: Karli Banas
Mikhayla’s collection was first inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Her theme is Utopia. She loved the whimsical aspects of the movie, including the world Alice was living in, her dreams, and the mushrooms. She looked at other Disney movies and shows and admired the concept of how anything one could dream of was real. She also looked on Pinterest and other websites to find unique and unconventional silhouettes.
Her favorite look from her collection is a dress with a fairly simple silhouette. The dress is unique in that it covers part of the face so that only the eyes are visible. She describes the dress as “very shape-forward.” Her favorite part of the dress is the fabrics because she combined two different fabrics to make the dress. One of the fabrics was a sheer floral, and the other fabric featured a sparkly texture that she placed underneath the sheer fabric. She enjoys playing with different textures and patterns and thought the unique shape of the dress made it the coolest look in her collection.
Mikhayla sees herself working in athleticwear or sportswear, even though she chose a more ready-to-wear style for her senior collection. She has a strong knowledge of knit fabrics and performance fabrics. She understands the importance of the shape and fit of garments designed for working out in. She sees herself working as a fashion designer for established brand.
The hardest part of creating her collection was finding and selecting the fabrics that she wanted to use. She loves a bunch of different patterns and colors and likes mixing them together to create interesting looks. She had to take time to plan out a specific color theme, and then translate that theme into textiles with different prints.
Women’s ages 18-35 are the main target market for Mikhayla’s collection. Especially women who are in college and starting to enter the workforce.
Mikhayla describes her design aesthetic as unique and outside of the box. She incorporates a lot of shapes that come off of the body. She uses a lot of different colors and patterns and likes to create fun looks different from what we typically see in stores.
Her favorite part of the design process was coming up with a bunch of different looks and taking her inspiration and drawing out looks based on it. Once she determined what kinds of shapes and silhouettes, she wanted to work with, she then iterated them into multiple designs. She had a lot of fun creating different iterations.
She feels the Stevenson Fashion Design Department has definitely helped her to better understand textiles and the characteristics of different fabrics. She also learned how to create flat patterns and tailor garments to fit a certain model or dress form, which she finds useful in making all her garments.
If she had the opportunity to dress a celebrity or public figure, she would choose Billie Eilish. Mikhayla describes Eilish’s fashion as being kind of out there and they aren’t tight and super fitted like most celebrities wear. Mikhayla feels anyone could wear Eilish’s clothes and appreciates how bright and colorful some of her looks are.
For inspiration Mikhayla looks to Off-White a lot, as Virgil Abloh is one of her favorite designers. She also likes Versace and Fendi. She loves the fabrication used by these brands and how they create their identity through different fabrics that correspond through each season.