Last Saturday, artists, designers, students, and Bay Area residents alike came to witness the Berkeley Art Musem/ Pacific Film Archive’s (BAM/ PFA)  first ever fashion show to emulate works already present within its walls. Echo: Silence, as it was called, was put on by the BAM/ PFA Student Committee, and thanks to the innovative efforts of event directors Monika Basse and Lauren DeMarti, a promising future lies ahead for prospective fashion exposés of this sort at the BAM/ PFA.

Basse and DeMarti first started stringing together plans for Echo: Silence last semester. Basse was abroad when the initial idea came about. Upon returning to Cal for her final semester and hearing about the fashion show, she wanted to be apart of making this happen.

From a bystander’s point of view, Echo: Silence seemed to run smoothly and lived up to all of its expectations. Hosting a completely new and unfamiliar event at the BAM/ PFA, however, was not the easiest of tasks. “The most challenging part was getting the word out to designers for our first show, I think,” says DeMarti. Conquering this initial challenge not only solidified a key element in putting on the show, but also established a network between the BAM / PFA Student Committee and local fashion designers to be used for future fashion shows just like this! DeMarti goes on to say, “now that we’ve had one fashion show with BAM/PFA, it should be easier to recruit designers who’d like to participate for future shows. As it is, we had so much help from more experienced groups like FAST who gave us advice and contacts, and we’re very grateful for their assistance.”

Echo: Silence gave designers from UC Berkeley’s Fashion and Student Trends, as well as some from FIDM San Francisco two months to work on their pieces. Those fortunate enough to sign on with Echo: Silence drew inspiration from the Silence exhibit currently being featured at the BAM/ PFA. The highlighted pieces included Silent Head on a Concrete Floor by Mark Manders (outfit designed by Madeline Abshier), Electric Chair by Andy Warhol (Sandra Sequira), Violence Violins Silence by Bruce Nauman (Ming Cong), Yellow Silence by Christian Marclay (Gina Su), Box with the Sound of Its Own Making by Robert Morris (Mayela Rodriguez), and White Rorschach Door (The Electric Chair) by Christian Marclay (Yang Qu).

For designer Rajitha Kurmana, this was the first time to be highlighted in a museum for her fashion design. Along with fellow designer Madeline Abshier, Kurmana drew her inspiration from Silent Head on a Concrete Floor by Mark Manders. “It took me a week to put this together,” says Kurmana. Looking at the intricate folds of her black dress, which creatively imitated the layers of cement of its complementary sculpture, it came as a surprise that this did not take closer to a year.

Wearing Kurmana’s creation was her respective model, Wenchi (a.k.a Candace Simmons). With professional modeling already on her resume, Wenchi told us that this was the second time she modeled in a museum. When asked about her life off the runway, Wenchi explained that she is currently “studying biochemistry at community college, and hopefully will be at Cal someday soon!”

Many models displaying the designs at Echo: Silence came from FAST, which is where the BAM/ PFA also found designer and Cal student Sarah Mount. During a post-event Q&A session, Mount told us about her past in the field of fashion. “I began a fashion club in high school, and continued with that by joining FAST here at Cal,” says Mount. “I have done about four fashion shows prior to this, but this is the first so Avant-garde.”

Mount based her design off of With Hidden Noise by Marcel Dunchamp, Listen by Steve Roden, and White Painting (Two Panel) by Robert Rauschenberg. Mount explained how she was first going to make the dress out of string to copy the sculpture, but it would not work with how she wanted the dress to be shaped. To solve this, the inventive designer resorted to copper wire. Her cage-like dress allowed the design to produce the feeling of entrapment she wished to present, and then added a string headband to return to the original artwork’s material makeup.

Designer Jennifer Huang also told of a long-time passion for fashion, going back to her days in middle school. Huang told us about her interest in conceptual art, something one could easily gather when looking at her piece. Her design was based off of One Year Performance by Tehching Hsieh. “I drew inspiration mostly from Hsieh’s Rope Piece,” says Huang. For this performance piece, Hsieh spent an entire year tied to another human and yet unable to touch them.

Huang took this concept as literally as possible when designing her dress, which requires two people to wear together through intermingled arms and knotted sleeves. “This dress isn’t wearable for a daily basis, but I was shooting for uncomfortable,” Huang explains, “I wanted it to represent the confinement in relationships. They are so complicated, and there is always give and take.” Like so many others at this exhibition, Huang’s representation of this universally relatable concept was astonishingly executed and seemed to provoke the emotions of all who had come to see.

Everyone in the audience was able to experience front row seating, as the runway went down along the zigzag pathways separating the various exhibits within the museum. And after making their way through the maze of onlookers, designers and models stood next to the artwork that inspired them and spoke with those in attendance.

After all the excitement of seeing what were once sketches come to life, DeMarti had this to say: “We hope that the audience gained an appreciation for the Silence exhibit in general, as well as how art and fashion are really very closely intertwined – it’s easy to see fashion as simply a material thing, but fashion has the ability to change who we are or to tell others about us without any words.”

Although aiming to “echo” previous works, silence truly was the essence of this fashionable affair.

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