MCC fashion student creates architecture-inspired collection
Brianna Martinez
Many global trends come from the inspirations made by fashion designers.The inspirations may come from regular people, different cultures, nature, tragedy, or life experiences.
For MCC fashion student, Kirk Millar, the inspiration comes from architecture.
Millar is a former architecture major from ASU and decided to channel his architectural visions into the Fashion Focus program at MCC, mainly his collection of illustrations for clothing.
“I just realized that architecture wasn’t the creative route I thought it was. I found my abilities were stronger in fashion,” said Millar.
At only 19 years of age, Millar has already had a few previous collections he has designed.
To be clear, collections are illustrations of different clothing designs.
One of the reasons he chose to create his collection, putting aside the fact that it was a requirement for one of his classes, was because he likes to express architecture through his fashion illustrations.
Lloyd’s of London, a globally known insurance company in the UK, is the inspiration for his collection.
The inspiration comes from the building’s unique, almost futuristic, architecture.
“The collection is my vision of what edgy, young adults would look like hanging around the very modern building,” said Millar.
He also described the theme his collection distributes, which is a variety of bright colors such as fuchsia, purple, bright green, electric blue, and yellow.
“There are a lot of v-neck shirts in bright colors paired with white bottoms. For example, a bright yellow v-neck coupled with white pants.
“It is a spring and summer collection.” Millar said.
Millar’s other themes for his previous collections were equally unique.
“One theme for one of my collections was ‘Hollywood Glamour’ and we had to pick a celebrity so I picked James Dean. The collection was pretty casual with a lot of basic colors, like gray, paired with jeans.
“I was going off that gray Porsche sports car color because that was his passion, which he ultimately died from,” described Millar.
Another theme for one of his collections was “The seven wonders of the world” in which he used the architecture of The Great Wall of China, the Hagia of Sophia, the Coliseum in Rome, Stonehenge in the UK, the Tajmahal in India, the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
“I designed it right during Halloween time so the illustrations had a costume flair to them and I also took inspiration from the architecture of those structures,” said Millar.
One of his other collections was casual sports wear in which he got to research the brand, Rock & Republic.
He also explained that he thinks the Fashion Focus program at MCC is a great place to start out with when majoring in fashion.
“I really like the program and I think it is smart way for people to get their foot in the door with the fashion industry then they can branch off and go to fashion school,” Millar said.
He plans on applying to fashion school in LA or New York in the near future, possibly for the fall semester where the fashion industry is thirving.
“I have been really grateful for the fashion program at MCC because without that I wouldn’t have had such a great opportunity to pursue a career in fashion.” Millar said.
