Cross-Pollination: Fashion Diasporas
Cross-Pollination: Fashion Diasporas was a dynamic collaboration between The Museum at FIT (MFIT), Fashion Institute of Technology, and LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. Inspired by the Fall 2024 MFIT exhibition Africa's Fashion Diaspora, the project was organized by MFIT's Education Department. Students from both institutions engaged with works exploring three central themes: "Mothers and Motherlands," "Monumental Cloth," and "History Is Political."
The collaboration celebrated the entire design process, from inspiration and imagination to sketching and final production. Students drew from their diverse backgrounds and countries of origin, as well as from the innovative designs featured in Africa's Fashion Diaspora. Beyond creative exploration, the Cross-Pollination series fostered intercultural dialogue among students and faculty from two distant locations.
In 2025, a related exhibition at MFIT was curated by Campus Exhibitions Coordinator Gabrielle Lauricella. This ongoing partnership has been supported for multiple years by FIT faculty members Andrea Diodati and Loren Zodel, who bring their pedagogical expertise to the project. At LASALLE College of the Arts, the collaboration was enriched by the invaluable contributions of Circe Henestrosa, Adrien Huang, Shannon Sim, and Charles Rezandi.
Designer: Brianna Beidler (FIT student)
This piece is inspired by the women within Brianna's family and the opportunities that they have allowed her. The jacket features digitally printed photographs of various generations of her family's eyes as they take on a portal to the soul and have an immortal sense to them. Also featured are the handwritings of these women, transferred with essential oil, that speak to the importance of the mother.
The dress beneath is a series of dyed ropes that intertwine, representing the blending of various lineages and the blood shared between.
Designer: Audrey Wilhelmia (Singapore student)
To respond to this project looks at the theme of "Mothers and Motherlands." Inspired by Ann Lowe's flower dress and her story of learning to make flowers in her mother's shop, I want to show how tradition such as napeni can become an important part of my family life. When I was young, my mother and I did the napeni every day and from then napeni become a part of our family tradition. But now, because of modernization, we buy pre-cleaned rice, and the tradition has faded. In this project, I show how cultural traditions can be lost when these daily activities stop being practiced. I use beading to represent the rice in napeni, silk screen printing to show the tradition visually as a pattern in a garment, and spray dye to show how the tradition is fading.
Through this, I highlight the challenge of keeping cultural practices alive in today's modern world.
Organizers
The Museum at FIT | Education Department
Tanya Melendez-Escalante, Melissa Marra-Alvarez, Eileen Costa, and Frida McKeon Loyola
Fashion Institute of Technology
Andrea Diodati, Fashion Design
Loren Zodel, Fashion Design
School of Fashion at LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore
Circe Henestrosa, Daniela Monasterios, Kathryn Shannon Sim, Charles Rezandi and Adrian
Huang
