Allison Jones

Excerpts from an Interview with the Designer

Recorded on: March 22 2023

Tell me about your collection!

I didn't actually start with a concept. I started with my material because my dad is a firefighter and he's retiring soon, so he's giving me all his old turnout gear, the stuff they actually wear to fires. He gave me three or four sets of those and so I've been taking them apart and I'm gonna use it for overlays in my collection. I'm really excited about that. Other than that, the concept has evolved into a mix between femininity in a post-apocalyptic world. I have feminine silhouettes for both the men and the women in my collection. And then it's all in materials that are a little more industrial and military. Some of my top designs are inspired by European military uniforms. I take a lot of inspiration from those, and I also just love military history. So I always gravitated towards that with my designs. That was led by the material, since the materials are very rugged.

Is there any reason why you’re interested in post-apocalyptic and dystopian themes?

This is since I started working on my collection, but it influenced it a lot in details, and changes I made to it. But I started watching, uh, The Last of Us. And I love those kinds of shows, The Walking Dead, and where society has sort of broken down and reformed in a different way. 

Something I was thinking about, is that I'm breaking down some other form of government: the firefighter and police aspect of that. And breaking down those materials and reformatting them into a more military, but also everyday wear look that is more feminine. It’s a rebirth through repurposing of past parts of like various government things.

Have you been thinking about how the audience will receive your work?

I think generally in my art, the only people that I care a lot about their opinions on, are my friends that are also designers. Because I know they have, I don't want to say I value their opinion more than the average person, but they have more of an eye for knowing where I'm coming from, in my mindset from a designer standpoint.

What challenges have you been experiencing?

Most of my challenges are that I struggled with figuring out what materials I wanted and because there's a limited amount of money I can spend on stuff. I don't want to buy new fabric for everything, but I also don't want to contribute to fashion waste. I did manage to work my way around that and I thrifted like all of my main fabrics and the fabrics from the uniforms were my dad's.

What is fashion to you?

Okay, this is gonna come across as, I'm just doing this to get the degree, but like I personally have always been more into the alterations aspect of it. I'm mostly into the sewing aspect of it. 

One thing about fashion that I really like resonated with was the sustainability aspect of it. Last year we did a trashion-refashion project, and that was probably my favorite thing I've ever done. It made me think more about the environmental impact and how I'm basically getting a degree that's contributing to fashion waste. But, on the other side of that, I can also get this degree and try to be on the other end of that and minimize fashion waste and come up with better ways to reuse what we already have. So personally for me, fashion is a way to express yourself, but also do so in a way that's not harmful to the environment. And truly doing like whatever makes you feel comfortable in fashion.