In the bustling basement of Burk Hall, San Francisco State University students darted back and forth from their workshop tables to their mannequins. Some with measuring tapes around their necks and a few with colorful pins in their hands, these fashion-forward individuals were focused on putting the finishing touches on their latest project.
A common theme among the designs displayed on the mannequins around the room was the use of an unfamiliar material: paper Bay Area Rapid Transit tickets.
This Saturday, SFSU students enrolled in ADM 362 (Apparel Design II: Draping) will have the opportunity to showcase their work in a high-fashion runway show hosted by BART. The free event will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Rockridge BART station parking lot.
Emma Lane Wolfe is one of many apparel design and merchandising students who will be participating in “Project Doneway: A Farewell to BART Paper Tickets.”
“One of our first inspirations was a Romanesco cauliflower,” Wolfe said. “It looks like an infection.”
The runway show, which has a futuristic theme, had Wolfe and her group going for an “alien look.” The top piece of the design is made of rolled BART tickets, creating a spiky texture of cones wrapping downward to the waistband of the skirt.
“For the cones, it was definitely a lot of trial and error because we’re folding them into a shape they’re not wanting to be in,” Wolfe said. “It took a lot of weird tape on the inside and making sure they’re completely closed on the top.”
Since the start of the Fall 2024 semester, students in the class have been working on piecing together the outfits for this event. Some students said they had to think creatively to develop a design that not only fit the theme, but could also withstand a runway walk.
Georgia Sachs, a junior apparel design and merchandising student, said she had to abandon her original idea of a chainmail skirt made with paper tickets and replace it with a flowy design of layered tickets secured with an elastic band.
“Since the BART cards are so thin, it was going to be too difficult,” Sachs said. “It’s not reliable with weight, and we don’t want anything to snap when she walks.”
Dulce Amezcua, Sachs’ groupmate, created the sleeves. Amezcua folded tickets into the shape of a 3D flower and attached chains to decorate the outfit’s shoulders.
The group’s design is crowned with paper ticket earrings and a ticket neckpiece folded in a zig-zag pattern.
Another group found a way to utilize the paper BART tickets in three different ways.
Lily Cohen, a senior apparel design and merchandising student, said her group used what they thought were the easiest construction methods as the framework.
For their runway outfit, they designed a skirt using two forms of the paper tickets — long strips of full tickets arranged in a pleated-like fashion, and folded tickets at the waistband where the strips are embedded to create a seam.
The third way Cohen’s group used the tickets was by cutting strips from the tickets and using those to create a lattice pattern for the top.
“We tried to just keep it simple,” said Mackenzie Simon, one of Cohen’s groupmates. “Most of our pieces are put together with tape and staples, so we weren’t sewing them and fighting against the tickets.”
Professors Kamal Ragbotra and Nancy Martin, who teach ADM 362, wanted to incorporate the runway challenge as the first project in their draping classes. The idea was implemented as a class assignment when BART officials reached out to the apparel design and merchandising department inviting students to be a part of the runway show.
“SFSU has long been a leader in encouraging transit,” said Alicia Trost, BART’s chief communications officer. “SFSU has a robust Apparel Design and Merchandising Department.”
Ragbotra said she and Martin felt the challenge was appropriate for their students as it involved the process of draping.
“It’s a good exposure for them to drape and show their creative side for the fashion show,” Ragbotra said.
The first, second and third-place winners of the runway contest will receive loaded Clipper cards and Visa gift cards, each up to $150 in value, and award plaques. First-place winners will also get the opportunity to work with BART on designing merchandise to be sold to the public, according to Trost.
Students from Academy of Art University, Oakland School for the Arts and City College of San Francisco will also join SFSU to compete in Saturday’s runway show.
