Michael Chamberlin

BFA Fashion Design Collections

Title: Strange Bird / Uschi

Updated: August 3rd

As a designer, it is my goal to use fashion as a means of manifesting joy through
flamboyance.

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and since I was very little I always felt very out of place in
the Midwest. This connected me from an early age to my great grandmother Ursula, who
I called “Nana.” She came to live in Cincinnati with my Grandfather and her husband
Frank after fleeing her native Berlin out of fear of their fate under the Nazi regime as
Jews.

She was very shameful and always avoided discussing her past life in Berlin that was so
traumatically ripped away, but never changed to fit into the Midwest, and never shied
away from standing out amongst the mundane. Surrounding herself with a misfit group
of gay, art and fashion loving intellectuals, she constructed a community for herself that
transcended her close-minded surroundings, which exposed me to queerness and
creativity as a small child.

The visual inspiration for my collection draws from German silent and classic films, and
its queer-coded stars like Marlene Dietrich. Beyond film, I also looked to my Nana’s
fashion illustration work she created as a fashion student in Berlin during the 20’s. They
are in a style very typical of their decade, and as my design identity tends to relate to 80’s
fashion, I want to look at ways I can reference these very different periods of fashion
history that show two polarized views of androgyny simultaneously, to create a new look
with unique silhouettes.

A large part of my practice when making pertains to considering plus size bodies, and
especially as I began to see my collection as an ode to my love of these different eras of
fashion history, it felt very important to me to design with an emphasis on creating pieces that can be worn by many different body shapes and sizes with ease. Furthermore, much of my work became focused on creating structure or volume intently within each piece so that it could either worn by a wide range of body sizes without losing the effect of the silhouette, or so that it could very easily be sized up or down without losing its proportion.

My greater goal with my collection is to pay homage to my great grandmother and the
person she has allowed me to become by marrying our worlds with clothes that are
vibrant, theatrical, androgynous, and unafraid to take up space or be loud in their
surroundings. I want this collection to be very fantastical, evoke joy, and speak to how I
view my German heritage, while being universal and inclusive to all sizes and genders.

I am a New York based designer in the last year of my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion
Design at Parsons the New School for Design. The goal of my work is to serve all
genders and body types by using traditional approaches to achieve new and unique
silhouettes.

I am especially focused in integrate bespoke tailoring and couture methods and historical
styles into my designs to forge new ideas that are contemporary, but harken back to old world
craftsmanship. My hope is that then each garment can take on many lives and not be discarded.

My fashion work and process is heavily influenced and supported by my love for
illustration, collecting vintage books about art and fashion history, photography,
collage, and experimenting with makeup art.