The Brenau Collaborative, which includes the Senior Projects and Portfolios Exhibition, the Undergraduate Juried Exhibition and the Student Fashion Show, occurs during Alumnae Reunion Weekend. This year, the Design Show featured drawings, interior design projects, digital photography, printmaking and graphic design projects in the Presidents Gallery.

The Senior Projects and Portfolio Exhibition in the Sellars Gallery was a combination of fashion design, fashion merchandising and studio art created by senior students. The fashion design projects, including swimwear, children and women’s clothes, featured the flats, renderings and fully built garments of each student’s designs. This year’s senior exhibition was also the first to have a retail window display, designed by fashion merchandising major Olivia Davis, complete with clothed mannequins and a yellow-flower backdrop.

The Student Fashion Show allows sophomore, junior and senior students to showcase their fashion designs. The uni-gender “Air Tight” collection by Jocie Beussee stood out to professor and fashion design chair Lori Gann-Smith.
“It’s a very topical concept,” said Gann-Smith. “Jocie’s collection embraces that idea of, if you’re not embracing a binary gender code, you would buy clothes that would be appropriate for either gender or no gender.”

A new addition this year was dance students creating solos, duets and group dances inspired by pieces from the Brenau Collaborative. Claudia Wilburn, the studio art program director, was excited to have this complementary aspect to the exhibitions.
“This year, we’re taking the concept and really making it collaborative,” she said.