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On Friday 16 May, the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Atlanta campus was abuzz. Crowds gathered around the runway, chatter dulling only when alumni Wayne Bucknor Jr (on cello) and Maxwell Park (on piano) began to play. The musical opener was followed by a stream of great menswear; sharp tailoring and graceful draping; and runway references from billowy blouses à la Chemena Kamali’s boho chic Chloé to fashion’s Western-wear double-down.
As Vogue Runway’s José Criales-Unzueta pointed out in his review of the show, the majority of the collections showcased on Friday were decidedly wearable — something that’s not always a given in student collections.
Over conversations with eight of SCAD’s soon-to-be graduates across various School of Fashion programmes including fashion design, fashion marketing and management, jewellery design and accessories, a strong thread became apparent: fashion’s next generation is acutely aware of the work and education they have ahead — and that clothes need to sell. As BFA student Flora Medina tells me: “Everything is a business.”
Atop a runway decorated with a colourful artwork by SCAD alum Trish Andersen, student models showcased the work of 53 students — about a third of the fashion programme’s graduating class — to celebrate the work of the next generation of design talent coming out of Savannah and Atlanta (SCAD has campuses in both cities). It was the cohort’s last hurrah before they graduate from the college at the end of May.
Many in this group have ambitions to start their own brands — but almost all want to gain experience at existing labels and companies first. Some are more wary of the industry they’re going into — tariff-ladden, rumour-fuelled, all-around chaotic — than others, but all are keen to get out there and get started.
Friday’s runway was the culmination of the first step in these students’ fledgling careers. Below, eight of them share their post-grad plans; why they’re doing what they’re doing; and their hopes and reservations about entering an industry that already looks very different to when they started at SCAD four years ago.
Cyerra Latham, BFA fashion
Cyerra Latham’s designs opened Friday night’s show. Her collection, she says, was inspired by her parents’ love story, and she looked to bring in elements deriving from both her mother and father. “I wanted to blend both of them, their separate cultures, because they’re so different as people, but their love is what really unites them,” she says. Latham’s time working at a factory called OnPoint Manufacturing in Alabama during high school sparked her interest in garment production, which she says is now her main priority. Her time at SCAD then helped her hone her design style and love of tailoring, suiting and textiles.
What are your plans post-graduation?
I want to work in manufacturing. I love garment design; how garments are made. So my end goal is to open my own manufacturing facility for garment production. But I know that post-grad, if I can work for a brand, I would learn so much from their design technique or people’s different ideas — and then take that when I want to make my own manufacturing facility.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
Being able to tell a story with my work — to be able to mix in things that are so close and dear to me, but also to make an impact on the design world.
What makes you nervous?
As an artist, I think we all get nervous about putting our work out there. But I think I’ve already done the big stuff like getting in the fashion show, so I’m kind of overcoming that fear already.
Oliver Riedinger, BFA fashion
Oliver Riedinger didn’t start out studying fashion, but marine biology. After losing his best friend — with whom he had a clothing brand in high school — he decided to pursue fashion full time. After a short time off of school working at a pressure washing and landscaping company in Orlando, Florida (where he’s from), he started at SCAD. This work experience informed his workwear-inspired collection, which also draws on Russian constructivist art. “It’s the reaction to a world where art feels like it is made for a higher majority, and I think art should be for everybody,” he says. “I wanted to make a workwear collection that could be worn by anybody.”
What are your plans post-graduation?
I do have a job offer from Abercrombie, for their mens’ jackets. I’m very ecstatic that I have a next step in the roster, and I’m excited to take what I’ve learnt within this last year in fabricating and creating a collection. But I’m always, always going to work for myself. I think it’s going to be a while before I launch a brand. I think there are a lot of mistakes that I would make if I jumped right into a brand for myself — there are a lot of things I need to learn, like how to spend both my time but also the money I would put into a brand.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
I’m very excited to enter a corporate world with weekends to draw inspiration and keep that part of my brain happy. I draw inspiration from everywhere — I’m really into music, I love going to shows. I do a lot of design work for bands here in Savannah. Also, the teamwork aspect is great. With Abercrombie, you work in these condensed teams — there’s so much more that you can learn when you get other people’s brains involved.
What makes you nervous?
Tariffs, obviously. Just getting around that with the corporation. And coming fresh out of college, I’m going to be a little fish in the big pond — just putting my head down, learning as much as I can, asking questions, getting to the place within a company where I can benefit them rather than feeling like I’m just this new kid that doesn’t know as much as everyone else there.
What’s the most important thing you learnt at SCAD?
Ask for help. It’s the thing that took me a little too long to realise. I remember being in junior year and trying to do all these all-nighters and spend all my time in the studio. Don’t be afraid to ask the questions that you think might be stupid or that someone else who’s next to you would already know the answer to.
Savannah Luke, BFA fashion
Savannah Luke’s final collection, ‘From the Islands of Love’, is inspired by her upbringing in Barbados, from the botanic gardens and the beaches to the fish and fruit vendors. “I just wanted to share the community and the island that shaped me as a person and as a designer with the world,” she says. It incorporates swimwear, building on her work building her swimwear brand, Swim by Sav, in Barbados over the last three years.
What are your plans post-graduation?
Right now, I’m focused on gaining hands-on experience working in the fashion industry. I eventually plan to expand my swimwear line and maybe build on my own brand, but right now I’m eager to learn within the industry and understand how brands operate. Starting out, I was focused on my own brand. But I realised how important it is to gain experience from industry professionals and work for a brand. My plan has completely changed.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
As a Caribbean designer, I’m seeing more space for designers leading with identity and storytelling. Storytelling is really important nowadays, especially with social media. People now more than ever want to hear the story side of things. It’s really important for people to be educated on what’s going on in the world and how it shapes fashion, too.
What makes you nervous?
The fast-pacedness of the industry and the competitiveness can be intense. But I feel like that challenge is quite motivating — and after four years at SCAD, working on tight deadlines and being part of creative teams, I feel prepared to take it on. So I’m quite excited.
Micaela Kruger, BFA fashion marketing and management
For her capstone, Micaela Kruger created a resortwear brand called Marena as a celebration of her Peruvian heritage. The proposal includes a go-to-market strategy, from brand identity to retail-expansion plans.
What are your plans post-graduation?
At some point I’d love to start my own brand, but after graduation I’ll be joining Puig in Miami as part of the marketing team for Latin American markets. What excites me is how Puig blends heritage with innovation. I need some hands-on professional experience, then with all the knowledge I learn there I can apply it to my own brand.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
Applying all the knowledge that I gained here at SCAD, growing personally and professionally, making connections and learning from the big bosses out there that are operating in the industry.
What makes you nervous?
One concern is the oversaturation of content and products, which can make it difficult for brands to create genuine connections with consumers. In such a fast-paced and trend-driven environment, maintaining authenticity and long-term brand equity is very challenging.
What’s the most important thing you learned at SCAD?
The biggest takeaway is the importance of strategic creativity: how to think both as a creative and also as a strategy.
Lauren Garcia Quintana, BFA fashion marketing and management
Lauren Garcia Quintana’s capstone project is a proposal for a brand extension for Reformation: ‘Ref Lifestyle’. (She currently works at Reformation as a sales associate.) She proposes the introduction of a six-piece lifestyle product offering (including robes and cosmetics bags). To illustrate this, she used artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) to render images. Her main focus is the marketing, which will be community driven and include collaborations with brands like Diptyque to reach new audiences.
What are your plans post-graduation?
I’ve actually applied to SCAD’s luxury brand management graduate programme. My time as an undergrad has been great, but I want to be able to dive deeper. After that, I’m leaning more towards a marketing firm. I like the idea of getting a brief and collaborating with people and creating this idea together. I hope that graduate school experiences give me more clarity on exactly where I fit based on my skills.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
It changes so much and so fast, like, especially now. Not even trends wise, but how we’re communicating through fashion. What does that look like? How are we communicating to audiences? I think that changes a lot, too. I’m just excited to have that opportunity for someone to take a chance on me and teach me what they have to know in the industry so far.
What makes you nervous?
There are so many different concerns in fashion and other things that contribute to the fashion industry, even though they’re not directly related to fashion that will impact us. I’m seeing that on the retail end. But also, everything moves really fast, so there’s so much pressure for brands to constantly be visible. That’s where brands lose authenticity and realness — the Gen Z consumer is looking for that authenticity. If we’re overconsuming on social media, it becomes overwhelming and there’s a risk of creative burnout in a culture that doesn’t slow down at all. I hope to see more brands embrace slower approaches and prioritising meaning overreach.
Flora Medina, BFA fashion marketing and management
Flora Medina has just gotten a job offer the day we speak. She’s always been interested in editorial and media, and used her minor in art direction to bolster her fashion business knowledge for her final capstone: a business strategy for a fashion and culture publication, specifically targeting LGBTQIA+ women and nonbinary people. “I’ve really tried to blend my interest in fashion and art direction in my time here,” she says.
What are your plans post-graduation?
I actually just got an offer today from i-D. So I’ll be moving to New York pretty much right after graduation to be an associate editor. I’ll mainly be helping with social media, but I’ll also be writing and helping cover events and things like that. Social media wasn’t necessarily what I thought I would go into, but it’s something that I’ve come into in the past year. When I was editor-in-chief for our student fashion magazine The Manor, that was our primary touchpoint.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
It’s a very interesting time to be entering the industry. The media blends conversation on where society is at any given moment, with fashion and style and dress. It’s a really nice opportunity to be a part of that conversation. Also, to me, part of why I like fashion is just the impact that it can have on how you feel. We’re in a time where a lot of people’s spirits need a little bit of lifting.
What makes you nervous?
It’s definitely a big time of transition, and I feel like there are a lot of different directions that most things can go in right now. It’s a little bit scary or intimidating to not know what’s coming next, but I think it’s also kind of exciting to think about the opportunities to help determine how we cover this.
How did studying fashion business and marketing influence your approach to editorial?
It’s given me an interesting perspective, because a lot of what we focus on is very managerial with numbers and your bottom line as a business. It’s given me a good sense of how to balance creativity and like the content that I’m trying to produce while also keeping in mind that everything is a business, in a sense.
Olivia Tanzy, BFA jewellery
Olivia Tanzy started making jewellery (beading and wire work) in high school. Her final jewellery collection, ‘Figments of Choice’, is partly inspired by a poem about figs in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. “We often, in our 20s, struggle with decision paralysis — if you don t choose that fig, they all shrivel up and die,” Tanzy explains. Her work — comprised of ceramics, sterling silver, gold-plated metal and Baroque pearls — reminds that there are new figs each season. “Choosing one right now doesn’t necessarily mean you lose all the others,” she says. At SCAD, after a sophomore year ‘Introduction to Jewellery’ class, she realised jewellery wasn’t just a hobby, but her career of choice.
What are your plans post-graduation?
The ultimate dream would be to have my own brand and my own line of jewellery. But I really just want to grow in my craft and learn as much as I can. I had an internship with Ringcrush in Atlanta last winter, and I fell in love with it. They invited me to work there in the fall. I’ll start in August, and I’m super excited to again work with my hands and have that hands-on experience in the jewellery industry.
What makes you nervous?
AI is intimidating. There’s definitely that fear of people losing touch with the handcrafted, personal human emotion behind creating products. But SCAD gave me the opportunity to learn how to take advantage of AI and use those different tools. So there’s good and bad parts of all of the rising technologies, but I’m just trying to learn as much as I can and run with it.
Sonia (Shuang) Yang, MA jewellery
Sonia Yang came to SCAD after graduating from a product design course at home in Taiwan. Her final collection is about fulfilment; inspired by the Eastern culture of five elements: wood, water, earth, metal and fire. She uses carving and 3D modelling to create her sculptural pieces, incorporating materials from seashells and wood to gemstones and pearls. She knew she wanted to make jewellery after she hopped between department stores window shopping with her mother.
What are your plans post-graduation?
I’ll be joining the hardware design team at Kate Spade in New York. I’m really excited about working with a well-established brand to help me learn more about the industry. Before, I was thinking of maybe opening my own brand, but now I feel like I want to be a designer under a very historic and prestigious brand. The reality is it’s really hard to start your career especially as an international student in the US. But I really hope that one day my design can be displayed in a department store under Van Cleef Arpels or Tiffany.
What excites you most about entering the industry at this time?
The smile of the client. Last winter, I had an internship in New York with an Italian jewellery brand. Whenever I saw them smile and interact with the piece, this made me feel very powerful. I also love that, right now, people not only focus on the jewellery’s beauty, but they care about the story behind the jewellery.
What makes you nervous?
I think the thing concerning me the most is that the fast pace of the industry can be overwhelming. But I feel prepared.
Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
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