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Literature Meets Fashion at Text & Textile Academic Symposium and Fashion Event

Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Text & Textile is an exciting two-day academic symposium and fashion show event. The Texas Southern University Department of English, World Languages & Philosophy will host its annual academic symposium. This year, presenters from as far away as Canada, Nigeria, India, Australia, and Serbia will join our faculty and student scholars to discuss correlations between literary, fashion, and media arts. Additionally, fashion industry professionals will host short workshops, encouraging HBCU students to pursue careers in fashion journalism, design, textile technology, merchandising and manufacturing.

text-and-textile

Texas Southern University will host fashion scholars from around the world for “Text & Textile,” a two-day symposium and fashion show, on April 20-21.

Students, faculty and alumni are collaborating on this transdisciplinary event.  This year, the annual Billy Joe Turner Writing Symposium highlights the correlation between the literary, fashion, and media arts. The LIT Fashion Experience culminates the two-day academic event featuring the original designs of eight world-renowned professional designers.

Scholars from as far away as Serbia, Canada, India, Nigeria and Australia will join national and local academics for panel discussions with the community and present papers. These presentations and panels will include critical conversations with fashion icon and former Halston designer Kevan Hall, as well as fashion journalist and author Constance White, about the significance of African American representation in the fashion industry. 

“Now is the time for Texas Southern University students to major in Fashion Design and Textile Technology,” White said. “Texas Southern University has the ability to foster students’ ‘excellence in achievement’ in the next quarter of the 21st century.”

It will also include Beatrice Chagnon’s “Between Schein and Shein: Inhabiting Clothing to Inhabit the World in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Short Story ‘Problems Problems’” and Dr. Morolake Dairo’s “Unraveling the Threads of the Biafran War: Costume Analysis in the Movie Half of a Yellow Sun.”  Student and professional poets, including Lakia “Kanei” Taylor, will take the stage to perform spoken word, during an open mic on April 20.

The finale is an evening of fashion on Friday, April 21, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The 2023 LIT Fashion Experience will honor and promote Texas Southern University’s historic Fashion Design and Textile Technology Department. Headlining the show will be Houston’s own Chasity Sereal, couturier and Project Runway finalist. The show will feature original, literature-inspired looks.

Other globally renowned expert designers are set to grace the LIT Fashion runway, including the incomparable Toni Whitaker, Seven O’Keefe Jarmon and Negris LeBrum designer Travis Hamilton. As an additional treat, statement pieces from TSU alumna Yolanda Adams’ jewelry line will also be featured.

All proceeds from the symposium will fund College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences (COLABS) Alumni student scholarships and academic events sponsored by the Department of English, World Languages, & Philosophy.  

“Text & Textile dovetails with university’s vision to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders, marrying curriculum with students’ passions,” says Sherry Fuller, COLABS Alumni representative. “If faculty, alumni, and students continue to strengthen their partnership, TSU will recruit the best talent and become THE HBCU destination for fashion design and textile technology.”

A survey conducted by faculty found approximately 130 current students are interested in majoring in fashion design, textile, manufacturing, and merchandising/retail.

For a full schedule of events, click here.

Category: Students, News Media, Alumni, Faculty & Staff

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Last updated: 04/18/2023