From the Sector

The capacity crowd at the 41st annual Cornell Fashion Collective (CFC) Runway Show saw the mother of all fashion shows.

The annual event, held March 22 in Barton Hall, had one common thread – and it was not necessarily by design: Three designers asked their mothers to wear their designs on the runway. Several more designers’ mothers traveled to Ithaca to see the show, put on by the student-led organization; other designers were inspired by their grandparents.

“It’s unusual to have multiple mothers walk in one show,” said Kim Phoenix, senior lecturer in Human Centered Design in the College of Human Ecology and adviser to CFC. “Historically, a lot of moms pitch in behind the scenes to help with the sewing.”

After traveling five hours to model the collection of her son, Drew Brown ’25, Adria Brown was immediately pressed into service, practically pulling an all-nighter to help him get his design just right. Drew thanked his mom: “It was only through experiencing your embodiment of womanhood that I could produce this collection.”

Brown’s “Jadine” collection was inspired by the movement of water and used symbols from artists and intellectuals from Western Europe, West Africa and America.

Zoe Alvarez ’25 was inspired by the Flower Festival in Medellin, Colombia, where her father lives; her mother, Karen Lopez, modeled the final look in her collection. “Aflora” explored the beauty of flowers, as well as the important function they serve to support pollinators and sustain ecosystems. Each of the pieces in the collection has hidden adjustable features, like a tiered red ruffled skirt that can be unzipped to choose a mini, midi, tea length or floor length to fit the occasion.
A model displays an ensemble designed by Maria Fernanda Serra Almeida Leite ’26. , Click to open gallery view
Credit: Sreang Hok/Cornell University

A model displays an ensemble designed by Maria Fernanda Serra Almeida Leite ’26.

Her red leather jacket has a zipper under the belt, so it can be worn as a longer jacket dress to mid-thigh, or as a cropped jacket. Another look, a floral dress, is fully adjustable within a size range using a lace-up and belt buckle back closure. It’s also reversible to a solid maroon dress, and the bra top separates from the skirt, so it can be worn six different ways and fully adjusted.

“I wanted each look to incorporate functionality in a different way,” Alvarez said. “I want people to be comfortable in their clothes, and to be able to wear them in different settings and for different events. These garments are meant to be worn, cherished over a lifetime, and even passed down.”

Alvarez said her interest in adjustable clothing came from watching her mother struggle to find clothes that fit comfortably after experiencing the natural body changes that come with aging.

“I always disliked the idea of having to buy an entirely new wardrobe every time someone gained or lost weight,” she said. “That constant battle with clothing can really limit self-confidence and self- expression. It’s also just not sustainable to keep buying one time use garments.”

Zada Stuart ’25 paid homage in her collection, “Mother of the World,” which examined the exploitation of nature and sought to honor both mothers and cows for their duty of motherhood. Her designs included two cow fetuses laser-carved out of wood.

Designer Gabrielle Moore ’25 works on her model’s hair prior to the show.

Maria Fernanda Serra Almeida Leite ’26, CFC’s creative director, said her collection was inspired by her mother, and by the song of the Kiskadee bird, called “bem-te-vi” in Brazil. Her collection explored her emotional and physical attachment to the sounds of the Kiskadee bird, to Brazil and to her mother.

Gabrielle Moore ’25 was inspired by her Haitian grandfather to create “Anbla Dlo,” which imagines an underwater city off the coast of Haiti where history, mythology and fashion intertwine.

Marcus McDermott’s mother, Heidi, recounted her son’s lifelong interest in fashion. Even as a preteen, she said, he sported an orange fedora as his signature piece. Now, the senior is designing timeless menswear with an eye toward sustainability, reflected in his collection, “Immutable Beauty.”

McDermott’s collection illustrates how while one’s sense of style can change over time, certain classic pieces have an heirloom quality that never goes out of style.

“His interest in sustainability grew exponentially after a trip to Manhattan with a class where they saw how garments were mass produced,” Heidi McDermott said. “He’s now totally into material development and using organic and biologically sourced materials to make fabrics and dyes. That was definitely a Cornell influence.”

A new technique could create waterproof coatings for clothes out of discarded textiles – far safer for humans and the environment than current coatings, which are typically made with harsh chemicals and carcinogens.

A Cornell research group led by Juan Hinestroza, the Rebecca Q Morgan ’60 Professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design in the College of Human Ecology (CHE), developed the low-temperature technique for synthesis of superhydrophobic, or waterproof, coatings.

“If we can save one piece of clothing from going into a landfill, then that will be success,” said Hinestroza, noting that Americans throw away anywhere from 80 to 100 pounds of clothing per person annually.

Droplets of (left-to-right) soda, water, orange juice, sports drink and milk are shown on a piece fabric with (top) and without (bottom) a UiO-66 metal-organic framework superhydrophobic coating, developed in the lab of Juan Hinestroza of the College of Human Ecology.

The metal-organic framework (MOF) used in the group’s coating can be synthesized at room temperature, using more environmentally friendly solvents (water and ethanol) and can be achieved without separation or purification of the discarded textiles, both energy-intensive processes.

Yelin Ko, a doctoral student in the field of fiber science, is the first author of “UiO-66 Inspired Superhydrophobic Coatings Fabricated from Discarded Polyester/Spandex Textiles,” which published Sept. 21 in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. Hinestroza is senior author; Tamer Uyar, associate professor of fiber science in the Department of Human Centered Design (CHE), is the other co-author.

This research is an extension of work published in 2023 demonstrating that old clothing could be chemically broken down to reuse polyester compounds to create MOF particles with potential applications in fire resistance, anti-bacterial properties, or wrinkle resistance. The new work is taking this proof of concept and applying it in a direct way.

In this work, metal-organic frameworks – unique structures pioneered in the 1990s by chemist Omar Yaghi, with whom Hinestroza collaborated on a Department of Defense grant in the late 2000s – were synthesized by chemically decomposing discarded polyester textiles into a heterogenous soup containing molecules of polyester and its monomers, dyes, additives and dirt usually associated with used clothes.

The researchers exposed discarded fabrics to an alkaline depolymerization process to produce disodium terephthalate, a known linker for synthesis of UiO-66, a popular MOF. They conducted experiments using different amounts of ethanol, and found that with a small amount of ethanol, UiO-66 assembled on top of a polyester and spandex substrate, exhibited superhydrophobic behavior.

The fragments of spandex, the group found, modified the otherwise hydrophilic MOF structure and made it hydrophobic. What’s more, the UiO-66 material was subjected to repeated washing and abrasion, and maintained its water resistance.

The group said this technology is one way to reduce the world’s reliance on harmful chemicals in textile manufacturing.

“We must find alternatives to fluorinated finishes, also known as ‘forever chemicals,’” Uyar said. “This study demonstrates how we can achieve functional finishes, including water-repellent and self-cleaning properties, by upcycling textile waste instead of relying on ‘forever chemicals.’”

The “upcycling” aspect of this work is what’s most important, Hinestroza said.

“It’s very easy to blame the brands or blame the producers, but in the end, they will not produce if you don’t consume,” he said. “And whatever is not being consumed is thrown away. And we want to believe that the problem ends in our garbage cans, but it doesn’t.”

This research utilized the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Facilities, which are supported by the National Science Foundation. Other support came from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the Korean-American Educational Commission.