Rachel Barlett

For my senior thesis, I took my inspiration from the zoo! I took several trips to the Cincinnati and the Columbus Zoos, taking photos and gathering ideas for my garments. You will see in many of my first croquis sketches that there are many different animal inspirations in the garments.

Eventually, I narrowed down the inspiration to focus on large birds. Ideations for several of the birds can be seen in the later sketch pages. Primarily, I focused on the Emu, Flamingo, Parrot, Peacock, Swan, and Penguin. My original plan was to feature one outfit for each, but I eventually narrowed it down even further with my professors and classmates. In the end, I presented garments that were inspired by the Peacock, Emu, Flamingo, and Penguin.

Each outfit featured a dress or a skirt with full accessories. Throughout the experience, I had the chance to work with leather, and I played with a great deal of pleating details. In the end, I was very proud of the hard work I had put into the garments, and I am proud to show them here.

Click to view garment photos.
Click to view croquis gallery.
Click to view runway gallery.