Radioactive Fashion
F.I.T. graduate Jennie Mason prepares for OFW with flair
By Augusta Olsen
Jennie Mason has a talent for finding beauty in the strangest places. Her clothing label, Radioactive Heart, has always embraced notions that ranged from bizarre to grotesque and she has transformed them into ultra modern, attractive apparel for men and women. In the past, Mason has garnered inspiration from zombies, dinosaurs and robots. This year, her fall line she will show at Omaha Fashion Week has captured the beauty of the creeping, the crawling and the flying–insects.
When I entered Mason’s studio a couple of weeks ago, she was stitching several pieces for her fall line. An array of iridescent baubles caught my eye on her work table. “They are beetle wings,” she said. These tear-dropped-shaped ornaments in vibrant turquoise, teal, green and gold were delivered to her from Thailand and will feature prominently on at least one of her garments the OFW runway in Saturday night’s main show.
This will be Mason’s third showing in Omaha Fashion Week. The 23-year-old graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in 2008, and went on to work in several reputable fashion houses, including Kenneth Cole, House of Diehl and Tommy Hilfiger in New York. After a marketing gig with American Eagle Outfitters, Mason realized that rather than sitting behind a desk to pay her NYC rent, she wanted to stretch her creative legs, and doing so led her back to her hometown, Omaha.
Mason now works full-time at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. As the administrative coordinator, she organizes art shows by day, and sketches and stitches her designs by night. Her new line represents a return to a more luxurious, feminine aesthetic, as she had been concentrating on men’s designs and screenprinting over the past two years.
The color teal dominates Mason’s new collection, along with elaborate constructions draped with soft chiffons and taffetas. Leather also factors into the season’s collection, including a stunning silver sheepskin bodice. As luxe as her new collection is, Radioactive elements still appear, such as neon surgical masks, heavy goggles, and insect wing accessories.
The ebullient young designer gave me a sneak peek of her new work, and talked with me about her career, her experiences in New York and Omaha and being inspired by totally gross things.
What is your focus for your 2011 OFW collection?
There is a new color story for this collection. The neon color palette, I have come to be known for, I guess. I do a lot of smaller fashion shows, and lot of designers and models will see this bright yellow or green and it’s become the Jennie Mason green. It’s great and I absolutely love the color, but for this collection I am steering clear of that. I might have a few pops of it, but I don’t want to be restricted to one color story. This whole collection is breaking out of that box, and I’m doing a lot more women’s wear, as well. The past two years, I had been focusing on men’s wear because there was a lack of it in Omaha, but I’m seeing a lot more designers that do men’s wear as well, so I decided to go back to what I know best, as my degree is in women’s fashion wear.
This collection is all based on iridescent insects. I like sci-fi kinds of things. I find gross or disgusting things, but make it into a beautiful dress. In past collections I did some zombie stuff, but it was chic zombies, so it was these beautiful dead creatures, with ribcage screenprints and skulls. I’ve done robots and dinosaurs. I like taking something gross and putting it in clothing that someone is excited about wearing and feels beautiful in.
I had wanted to do a collection on insects for a long time. Like these beetle wings, it is found in nature and it is gorgeous. But if you found it in your house, most people would just kill it, they don’t want a beetle in their house. These tiny creatures in our everyday lives surround us, but we just overlook them. Their structure, their exoskeletons and their wings have such detail, it’s really beautiful structures I have based all of my designs on.
Where did the name Radioactive Heart come from?
The whole radioactivity thing has to do with the weird neon glow, and heart, well my clothing has a lot to do with emotions. When you put a piece of clothing on, it’s about how you feel in it, so heart comes from that. Clothing can make you feel amazing, so for me, it’s a wearable art form that you live your life in.
What was it like going to school at F.I.T.?
It’s such an amazing school. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was so worth it, learning how to make my own patterns, how to drape, all the skills I need. I did a two-year program there, and then I came back here and I got a degree in print-making from UNO, which is where I started doing all my screenprinting. The awesome thing about it is, when I was at F.I.T., I had a lot of internships. After I graduated I got a job in P.R. at American Eagle Outfitters. It was fine, but I was doing a marketing job and I wasn’t around design. That’s why I came back. I got an internship at the Bemis Center, and so I came back here to make my fashion career work.
What did you do at Kenneth Cole?
I worked in their design services. I worked mainly for the women’s wear department. That was the best experience. Kenneth Cole does have a very big role in the organization, but he has a head designer and other designers. Kenneth would come down and mark off on what designs we should make. I was working for the head designer, it was great energy. Their office space is one large room where everyone is at their desks, but in the middle there is a design space that everyone creates on, and there are all these fabric swatches and sketches everywhere. It was amazing. Every season they put together all these inspirational things, they have this gorgeous closet where they put everything they like for inspiration. I would pull different things to help them find all these inspirations and details. I did Photoshop and Illustrator stuff for them too, helping with design flats and sketches.
How about House of Diehl?
It’s a small company, and they are mainly about events. They have a lot of clothing that has been in music videos. I was visiting back in March and MJ was telling me about how they are designing for Lady Gaga. They have ridiculous stuff that would work for her. Their main thing is they are all about an event they have called Style Wars. I was actually there when they started this, so I did their first event. They had a lot of designers in New York City, and you are on stage for four minutes, and there are two contestants, so it was me and someone else battling to make an outfit in four minutes. They have made quite a name for themselves, they’ve had Style Wars on almost every continent now. We created this garment in four minutes, it was the craziest thing I’ve ever done!
What do like most about your work in fashion in Omaha?
I really like the fact that I do these things that are strange and unconventional. Anyone can make a collection based on something beautiful, like a flower, but I like that I’ve found something different. It’s been such a good experience to show in Omaha. It’s always exciting to see a piece come together, but it’s a totally different experience to see that garment on a model, on a runway, and see people’s reaction to it. Since I’ve been here, Omaha Fashion Week has transformed into this fabulous event. They’ve made a really good name for fashion designers in Omaha because there are a lot of us and it’s wonderful to see how many keep emerging. It’s amazing.