"People Should feel powerful"
Nick Mansfield is a first year student attending Parsons School of Design studying fashion design. Nick is one of the many talented students of NYC.
I had the pleasure to interview Nick about his work, fashion, and his ideals about the society we live in today.
I think fashion is a form of expression. It's about being comfortable in your own body. Fashion and what you put on your body has the ability to make you feel powerful. Fashion is power. It's a way to showcase who you are to the people around you. There are no lines nor bounderies drawn. It's an art that can be expressed in many ways.
I think fashion today is all just recyled styles from the past and also recylced ideas. There are so many companies who look at eachother for ideas diminishing the creative aspect. Fast fashion has not only hurts our environment but also takes the art out of it. It has allowed these multi billion dollar companies to exploit the pockets of consumers and exploit the world. In our society, people tend to glorfiy fashion for how much they pay for it basing their wardrobe off of who made it. The representation a brand has greatly influences it's market value. Paying $90 for a regular white t-shirt with a few letters on it is absurd.
What mostly inspired my collection is the unawareness people have towards hate crimes, specifically towards the LGBTQ Community. These hate crimes that have happened recently are what sparked this collection. We live in such a hateful world filled with people who are homophobic nonetheless and my goal is to highlight that. I want everyone to see the hate that this world is filled with through art.
I love color so I made sure to include as many colors I can for my collection. The tears you see on the clothing and the streaks of blood represent the countless amount of attacks againsts people of the LGBTQ Community. In my sketches, I decided to hide the faces: the eyes, nose, mouths, to symbolize the silence society tends to show towards these events. Silence is just water to the flame. Lets use our voices and be heard.
My style is influenced by my work but in a more lazy way. I wear mostly sweats I'm all about comfort unless I'm going out then I need to look like a bad bitch. I wear a lot of colors. I love color. I think people should enjoy the colors that life has to offer. I usually wear atleast 5 colors a day. My friend Steph noticed this about me. Now everytime she sees me she counts how many colors I'm wearing, it's great.
"I'm short as fuck. I've always wanted shoes that increased my height, everything my size is ugly as fuck and boring." "People(designers) haven't dove into platforms maybe because they aren't so functional all the time but that just leaves more room for creativity!"
No, but I do want it to sound nice and to have an abriviation just like YSL (Yves Saint Laurent).
I think I want to start making t-shirts and stickers with a cool print or logo. I'm definitely going to start the stickers first and who knows maybe I might even start a business account! We shall see where the future takes me.
