North Texas Clothing Class Manufactures Clothing For The Homeless

Think fashion designer and you automatically imagine glamor runways and colorful bombastic outfits. But the truth is that fashion design involves a lot more logic, practicality, efficiency and effectiveness than you might expect. But that’s not all. Take this North Texas fashion student piece for example. They make clothing tailored to the needs of homeless men.

Zigewai Odukomaiya, lecturer in fashion design and merchandising at Texas Womans University, asked students in a mass production engineering class to think of a project with a community focus. Every year after the final project is done, most of the clothes end up sitting on the shelves.

I just think one day, we still have these suits and they keep managing them so what can we do and where is it needed? said lecturer Zigewai Odukomaiya CBSDFW.

After some brainstorming, the student and teacher groups decided to focus on the homeless man. Since most of the time is focused on women and children, explained Odukomaiya. So with that in mind, students should start thinking about the practicality of the clothing items they will produce.

It has to be neat if they need to go out looking for work. It should have enough pockets to store their belongings, he said. That way they don’t carry too much in their hands. Arm cuffs at hem to keep warm in winter. Tighter cuffs at the ankles too, to protect them from the cold. To accommodate all sizes, they added an elasticated waistline and drawstring so every outfit can be adjusted.

The class is divided into two groups, each responsible for designing patterns and making one outfit. In one design, they added reflective cloth on the shoulders considering that homeless people might walk the streets at night. Another group focused on how appropriate clothing would look if they were attending a job interview.

In total the class produced 13 sets of clothes and the clothes were donated to Twice as good as Denton and Women’s Pregnancy Resource Center For Women.