Cross-Pollination: Fashion Diasporas is a dynamic collaboration between The Museum at FIT (MFIT), Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. Inspired by the Fall 2024 MFIT exhibition Africa’s Fashion Diaspora, this display brings together fashion design students from both institutions who conducted research, interpreted their findings, and created projects celebrating diasporas from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. 

The students in New York and Singapore centered their work around three key themes: "Mothers and Motherlands," "Monumental Cloth," and "History Is Political." They drew inspiration from their own backgrounds and countries of origin, as well as from the fashion designers featured in the fall exhibition, to produce a diverse range of works. On view here are 27 projects from various fashion disciplines, including draping, childrenswear, virtual prototyping, accessory design, and 3D illustration.

The Cross-Pollination: Fashion Diasporas student exhibition marks the fourth collaboration between The Museum at FIT, FIT, and LASALLE's School of Fashion in Singapore. It was curated by Campus Exhibitions Coordinator Gabrielle Lauricella.

Image: 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. 

Africa's Fashion Diaspora's Connection: Mothers and Motherlands, Thebe Magugu, Genealogy collection, custom shweshwe cotton ensemble, spring 2022