A senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Gordana Rasic is not your typical college student. A biology major by day, Rasic already has plans after graduation to become a lab technician. But she has another opportunity that has stopped her in her tracks: as the creator of GOCA Designs, Rasic, along with her design partner Omar Villalobos, a junior at Columbia College in Chicago, has scored a once-in-a-lifetime chance to showcase her fashion line at New York Fashion Week next month.
Her Campus sat down with Rasic and Villalobos to discuss this big break and the future of GOCA Designs.
Photographer: Kirsten Miccoli
Hair/MUA: Embelliss by Pati
Credits to Impulse Magazine
Her Campus: How did you hear about this incredible opportunity?
Gordana Rasic: We heard about the opportunity through Facebook, which is great for making connections. We contacted the producer (of New York Fashion Week) and sent our contact information and pictures and applied to showcase our designs. I was staying over at Omar’s place in Chicago, and one day while we were working on our designs, he got a phone call from one of the producers, saying that we were selected to showcase our work. I was packing my bag to catch my train back home, and as I was walking out, I literally tripped down the stairs because I was so nervous that he knew something I didn’t know. It wasn’t until after we were crossing a bridge on the freeway that he told me we were selected (to showcase). We started screaming and crying and jumping up and down. It was a beautiful moment. For me, it really meant a lot for my family. My grandparents were really into fashion, and it took me a while to accomplish anything major before they passed away, and my dad discouraged fashion, so with this opportunity, one of my main goals in starting in the industry is to show them that I can do this, that this is a potential lifestyle for me.
Omar Villalobos: We have a fan page on Facebook and a Twitter page, and I make sure to keep it updated often. A couple of months ago, I added two girls as friends on Facebook; one was a DJ and another was a producer for the show. I didn’t know much about (the show), but one day, one of the girls sent me a Facebook message and told me that she was following my work and told us we should apply. Out of 30 candidates that applied from just the Chicagoland area alone, they picked four, and we were lucky to have been chosen. We worked really hard to get it.
HC: How did you know you wanted to go into fashion?
GR: It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. I felt the clothes I wanted to wear didn’t reflect my personality, and if they were, they were way to expensive. So I started designing my own clothes. Then, one of my friends in the RSO Dollhouse 67 asked me if I wanted to create a collection for their show in February 2010, and I thought I’d give it a try, even though I wasn’t much of a designer. But I had a lot of fun throughout the whole process and the line turned out to be a success. I didn’t actually start designing my own stuff until November 2010.
OV: I knew I wanted to do something with film and fashion. But after taking film classes, I realized I wasn’t that passionate with the subject, and wanted to try out fashion. I was a little nervous going in to my classes, but after meeting Gordana, I knew it was something that I wanted to throw myself into.
I met Gordana in June 2011 after my brother, who goes to U of I, introduced us at a party. We were talking about fashion, I said we should collaborate together, but in my head, I didn’t think it was going to happen.
GR: We wanted to see how well we would work together and see what we can come up with. Within a few weeks, we were able to book a bunch of meetings and went from there.
HC: What inspires you when you create a piece for your line?
GR: Every piece in a collection is designed to expose duality that we see in our society. Our last collection was about vital organs, based on how important these things are in order for us to live, both physically and socially. We want to focus on both sides of the concept behind the general meaning.
OV: Gordana and I are sort of similar in how we approach pieces, but I’m more drawn to visuals. For me, inspiration comes from nature and paintings, such as the way the grass blows in the wind as an inspiration for how a dress will flow down the street. I’m drawn to extravagant and elegant, kind of like Elie Saab, and Gordana is more like Jeremy Scott. Sometimes she wants a body-con dress and I might want a flowy, babydoll sweater dress, so we play off each other’s ideas.
Photographer: Kirsten Miccoli
Hair/MUA: Embelliss by Pati
Credits to Impulse Magazine
HC: What kind of girl do you envision wearing your designs?
GR: I think of someone who is very self-empowered and unafraid to speak her mind. No matter how bold she may be or how vulgar her language is, there’s always a certain class of sophistication that’s lingering in the background.
OV: GOCA is a lifestyle and an art vessel for the community. We think of a strong, confident woman wearing our designs.
HC: When you hear the word “fashion”, what comes to mind?
GR: Art. Fashion is that portal where all of these different forms of art can come together, from the playwright as the designer, the artist in charge of makeup, the sculptor as the hairdresser, and the models who construct this beautiful interpretive dance and perform it on the runway. It’s a symphony of all these artistic instruments we have today.
HC: What can viewers expect at your showing?
GR: This is the first collection Omar and I have done together since he joined me last summer. With this collection, we are focusing on the elegance of maturity. Because we are such young designers, we are constantly struggling to find a voice to show these more “experienced” designers that we are mature beyond our age, and we want to show that age doesn’t have a maturity level prescribed to it. But we wanted to figure out how people achieve these maturity levels, whether it is through experience or something else.
The pieces have a very Victorian inspiration to them. We have a few evening wear looks, elegant gowns, cocktail dresses, suits, several long skirts with a high slit and pants. We’re using black and white, cream, a rich blood red, sapphire orange, a not-quite navy and a rich forest green.
OV: The collection is called “The Elegance of Maturity”, and a key component is the duality of maturity and where it comes from. Since it is a women’s line, we wanted to combine that theme with the time period between the 1890s and the 1930s to show the political spectrum where women are gaining these new freedoms, and these freedoms are similar to personal experiences, such as the right to vote. We want to think about how women have always had the right to vote, and after they gained it, if they gained maturity with it. They (the producers) want us to showcase 15 pieces because that is the preliminary number for each person, but we actually have 18, so it depends on what the producers like.
HC: How does it feel to be in a show with the likes of Diane von Furstenberg and other high-end designers?
GR: It’s a bit intimidating because we’re so young, but at the same time it’s such an honor to be in the same room with all of these respected individuals.
OV: It’s hard because sometimes other designers don’t acknowledge the work that young individuals can do, but it’s also very exciting for us to show that we can gather a voice for those who don’t have one through our designs.
HC: Gordana, you’re a biology major on the pre-med track, which is completely opposite from fashion design. How do you balance being a college student and a fashion designer?
GR: For me, it’s a lot of sacrifice. You really have to focus on balancing your time and figuring out what needs to get done. And I don’t sleep much.
Photographer: Kirsten Miccoli
Hair/MUA: Embelliss by Pati
Credits to Impulse Magazine
HC: How does this opportunity influence the future of GOCA Designs?
GR: It’s definitely going to allow us to expand to create a mass production on our clothing. It opens the doors for us to meet potential buyers and have key people in the New York fashion industry come check out our work at the show, rather than them come all the way to Chicago, so it’s a good way to put us out there in the business. We want to influence the public to take part in more charities and non-profit organizations and get them more involved with the world around them. That’s what is great about the show: we’re preserving the meaning of fashion with these organizations to give a voice to these individuals. We say, “We’re made by the community, because we’re for the community”. And we’ve already selected a charity for our show in April.
OV: This show will definitely bring in more publicity for us. We’ll be able to give GOCA a much stronger stance, and we have the ability to say that we showed during New York Fashion Week, so it gives us more credibility, but we’re hoping to ultimately get picked up by stores. It’s tough, but we’re trying to build a good team and pick up from where we left off. And money is tight. We’re all over the place; we have so many more ideas for GOCA Designs. We want to start our own charity and sponsor summer programs for kids in the city whose parents can’t afford them. It’s funny because we’re both into fashion, yet we’re learning from one another. It’s a great learning experience. People keep asking us where our studio is, and we’re more concerned about paying rent. We’re still in school, so it makes it harder to move back and forth, but we’re moving really fast. We spoke with someone a couple of days ago, and she said it takes current designers 2-3 years to get to where we are now, and it took us only 6-7 months. We can’t slow down.
GR: After coming back from New York, I want people to say they have a voice within the GOCA fashion label. There’s two ways of pronouncing GOCA: go-sah (which is my nickname in Serbian) and go-cah, and we kept it like that because the designs are art and there should be a dialogue between the audience and the artist, that there’s two sides of looking at the conversation. After the show, I want people to find some sort of way they can identify with the label and relate to it and call it their own.
GOCA Designs will be showcased at the Emerge! show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 14 at 7 p.m.