New Class: Project Runway

A colleague of mine suggested that we co-teach a class that she titled Project Runway.  She teaches Family and Consumer Science (which includes sewing).  Our first days were spent looking at and making style challenges at www.polyvore.com.  We then asked the students to create hats using mainly paper or cardboard, along with other natural materials (we worked along side of them, making our own, included here). We asked the students to identify where they would wear their hats. In order: The Kentucky Derby, hunting armadillos, to a Fourth of July parade, working in a munitions factory, and lastly, to a botanical garden.

Would I do anything differently?  I think that it is important to emphasize form over "decoration."  All good design comes from form, whether we are talking about graphic design, furniture design, architecture or fashion. For a first challenge, though, it was a confidence builder- limited in scope, and easily made (with a hot glue gun).  The down side? Paper is hard to mold to the shape of the head.