A group of 20 BFA Design students are making their mark on Madison Avenue, with an exhibition of 14 original fashion ensembles currently dotting a stretch of the luxury shopping strip on the Upper East Side. Each piece is made out of a single material and installed in its own glass case; objects on view range from a flapper-style dress constructed out of silverware to a slinky number made, appropriately, out of Slinkys to packing-peanut pajamas. The exhibition, on view through November 15, is being held as part of the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District’s ongoing One-of-a-Kind Luxury event.

The Madison Avenue BID approached SVA's 3D Design Chair Kevin O'Callaghan (BFA 1980 Media Arts) with the exhibition proposal, having worked with the educator and designer this spring for another public installation, this one celebrating Madison Avenue Watch Week. O'Callaghan in turn brought the opportunity to the third- and fourth-year students in his Three-Dimensional Design course. He and the students had roughly two weeks to execute their projects, from conception to construction to installation.

"I became intrigued by the 'one' in One-of-a-Kind," O'Callaghan says. Accordingly, he asked students to choose just one item to use as their material. He and his students' designs focus on re-use and working within constraints, which meant keeping budgets low and using unconventional and inexpensive materials. O'Callaghan supplied the dress forms (as well as display stands and vitrines) but left the other choices to students, who settled on things like RAM chips (a common source of e-waste), orange earplugs (a design workshop staple) and teabags.

Included in each piece's display case is a small card identifying the material used and quantity thereof, as well as stats that put the often staggering amounts in some perspective (a suit made of 900 wheat stalks contains enough grain to make seven sandwiches; shoes made of 288 pencils could write 12.9 million words). Mert Avadya (BFA 2018 Design) made a dress out of 12,500 pennies. "I used pennies to underline the money that we spend on fashion," Avadya says, whose base material cost, apart from the wire used to attach the coins, was under $30.

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