Our final post highlighting the partnership between Charles Luck and the student from VCU’s Fashion Design and Merchandising Department.  What an amazing experience this has been – from witnessing the inspiration of stone in the students, to seeing their translations in fashion, to the final photo shoot at our Boscobel Quarry. We hope to continue this collaboration with VCU to support the creative development of young designers and provide the opportunity for stone to continue to be a muse for design.

Rachel Waters, from Richmond, VA, offers up these incredibly mature , articulate, and eloquent thoughts about her design experience…

In thinking about the “New Modern” trend outlined in the Charles Luck Design Perspectives forecast, I wanted to create clothing that referenced nature, yet incorporated simplicity in line and shape. I wanted my jacket to be shaped like a boulder – the raw material of Charles Luck products – to reflect beginnings and untouched sources. I made the print for my shirt by repeating a photograph of Retro Petrified Wood, which I thought would be different, as I think it is less commonly known that petrified wood is considered a stone.

Things like petrified wood that look one way (like bark or wood) and are actually something else (like stone) captivate my imagination, because I think that all human beings are that way. We all project a physicality that does not even begin to represent what we are mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and metaphysically, much like the boulder is a misrepresentation of the beautiful polished stone that it can yield.

I wanted the elegance of the Edwardian period to jet forward to our modern era to mingle with the simplicity trend in current décor and fashion. My three-piece ensemble is therefore a merger between an innocent past and untouched natural resources and a current modern, streamlined aesthetic.

You may also be interested in:

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   Fashion Inspired by Stone
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   More Stone-Inspired Fashion
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   2010: The Future of Fashion