Eric Garcia – SAIC Fashion Show 2023

Student Work

Eric Garcia

egarci16@artic.edu

The story I’m telling is glamorous, bold, adventurous, gutsy, fearless, opulent, dramatic, exuberant, sophisticated, chic, sparkly, iconic, and slightly delusional. With everything I make, the intent for it is to be wearable art. I’ve always loved making outfits or costumes and getting dressed up in the most absurd materials I could find, like pool noodles or mylar balloons, doing my makeup, and serving “looks.” Give me a theme and I’ll knock it out of the park. My work is primarily fashion based, making and sewing garments. I, also, love sculpture. When I can merge fashion and sculpture together, it’s even better. I work with a lot of volume and shape. I love volume because of the dramatic impact it makes. I love shapes because it’s fun to see how I can manipulate the body in ways never seen before. These methods and aesthetics stem from Franko Moschino, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and of course the biggest inspiration of all John Galliano.

I tend to gravitate towards evening wear: ball gowns with fifty-foot-long trains and dresses, where the only option to get to your destination is in a U-Haul because it’s that big. Because of that grand entrance, you’re an international sensation! Fashion for me is an opportunity to create characters and to be whoever you want to be, unapologetically over the top and flamboyant. To live in an “Haute Couture” world surrounded by beautiful things is aspirational. It’s a fantasy you get to create. With these unapologetic and impactful narratives, it gives me hope. At the end of the day that’s all you can ask for. Its hope that motivates me and drives to keep creating. I look forward to writing the rest of the story and see what the next chapters reveal.

Eric Garcia - IMG_5210

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Eric Garcia - IMG_5211

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Eric Garcia - IMG_5212

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Collection Statement-
Surrounded by loneliness, fear, anxiety, sorrow, I thought about flowers trapped in darkness. Overwhelmed by recent personal events this past Summer, from my mom being hospitalized for about three months to the end of a fifteen-year relationship with my partner, I fell into a deep dark place. While in the hospital, I would try to always bring fresh flowers to help cheer my mom up and even found flower wall decals at the dollar store that I covered the wall opposite her bed entirely with. I just thought about flowers wilting aways trapped in this dark and murky world surrounded by monsters. The monsters were the manifestation of all the raw emotion I was feeling, still feeling and trying to overcome. The reality of the hospital and my personal life overlapped with the idealism of growing flowers.

These teeth and tentacles pulling at me try to drag me down deeper into darkness.
The challenge was creating structure and volume with fabrics that were soft and flowy, a juxtaposition similar to the situations I face. I studied and looked at the shapes of various flower petals, even acquiring artificial flowers to have a point of reference. I chose silk organza as the main fabric due to its softness and drape ability. After experimenting with various materials, such as plastic screen mesh I found, I learned how to create the fundamental building blocks of shapes with the fabrics, so they had body. The understructures came as a result of wanting to create and hold the volume and shapes I was looking for. Another material I was excited to use was liquid rubber. This was used to give the garments a slightly battle-worn look, as if the models were emerging out of this dark swamp of fear and into the light. They appeared to be victorious in overcoming these influences, they are forever changed both physically and emotionally.

The overall mood of the collection is dark and haunting, foreboding in a way, but, most importantly, hopeful. The collection sort of evolved into this battle of good and evil, as these headstrong flowers face these “monsters”, determined to live, to thrive. They evolve, they change, they mutate. They sacrifice their beauty in order to get out of the dark and find the light. The process of building this collection was both exciting and difficult. The exciting parts being the hands-on work, the material exploration, while the difficult part was the emotional journey I had put in front of myself. There was no other choice than to face these fears head on. In the beginning, it was very hard to even start, but once I started to see the vision come to life, it gave me the momentum to keep pushing on.

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