This semester at PhilaU, we’re focusing on highlighting #girlbosses on our campus who are using their voices and skills to do exciting things in industry and in society. Recently, I sat down with Fashion Design senior Vivian Cooper, who just won top honors at the National Geoffrey Beene scholarship competition.
For those of you who don’t know Viv, she’s an outgoing Dunmore, PA native whose path in design was apparent at an early age. Both her mother & her maternal grandparents are artistic, so she’s always been surrounded by creativity. “My grandfather died when I was young, but he was an amazing painter, and my grandma… was always bringing art supplies so, growing up, I was always doing art projects [and] loved art my entire life” Vivian says. She also recalls receiving a paper doll book as a child and designing her own clothing from the included patterned paper for hours. She also said that “my mom got me sewing lessons in 8th grade, and the rest was history!”
Today, she’s graduated from patterned paper clothing to designing womenswear with a contemporary minimalist feel and a focus on fabrics and embellishments. While she says she tends to design clothing that’s similar to what she wears, she also embraces flexibility in her design aesthetic. “I’ve found that over college I go through so many different phases and it all melds together. It’s always changing, but that’s the fun part!” she explains. One thing that hasn’t seemed to change is her passion for sustainability in design, which coincidentally was the focus of the Geoffrey Beene challenge this year.
The Geoffrey Beene Scholarship competition, held in partnership with the YMA Fashion Scholarship Fund under the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), is the second portion of a several month-long process. The competition starts with a design prompt that is presented to students in CFDA certified design schools across the US. The prompt is “…always focused on industry and designing towards industry. This year it was focused on bringing sustainability to the mass market… so it made it really exciting for me” says Vivian. In response to the prompt, Vivian chose to design a private label swim and beachwear line for Target called Full Circle: From the Sea and for the Sea. The selling point of her collection is the fabrication – a fiber called Repreve that is made from recycled from plastic bottles. “This line [would be] saving millions of plastic bottles from ending up in landfills and waterways and, in turn, there would be a movement behind the line that would encourage engagement with communities and consumers” Viv explains. This community and consumer engagement would include beach cleanups where recyclable materials would go back to Repreve for the continued production of sustainable fibers.
The submission process for the Geoffrey Beene portion of the scholarship competition starts with eight students chosen from a pool of sixty applicants (one candidate is selected from each school) from the first half of the competition. Each of the eight finalists (four in marketing and four in design) receives a $10,000 award and moves on to present his or her project in New York to a panel of Fashion Scholarship Fund board members. From the eight finalists, two design and two marketing projects are selected for the final $30,000 awards, and this year Vivian took home a grand prize along with an additional unprecedented $5,000, adding up to the competition’s first ever $35,000 total award. However, with great reward comes great responsibility – and a lot of hard work, energy, and some rough patches, as Vivian learned. “My project got deleted two weeks before it was due because of a problem with the computers. I lost the whole thing except for some rough drafts I’d sent…in an email.” she tells me. Reminiscing on what most would consider a disaster, Vivian says it was “…all of the love and support from everybody” and “…praying the entire time!” that got her through. “It was a big lesson to me towards the end that win or lose, it’s whatever, but when you see how much people love and support you, [you know] you’re trying your best and that’s all you can do” Viv explained. When I asked Vivian what her plans are to relax after the competition, she said she definitely plans on “not doing any extra work!”, and says that she did actually take a sparkly bath bomb bath the day before her presentation in New York “just as a reminder that no matter what happens [I] did [my] best!”
On the topic of plans, I asked Vivian what she’s most excited about after graduation in May and her response was “I think it’s most exciting to be stepping into what you’ve been training for for the last four years! New York is a big exciting thing that could be a possibility. Or the West Coast… it has a lot of opportunity with sustainability or just more thoughtful brands.” On another note, she’s also excited to move into and decorate her own apartment!
Finally, I had to know who Vivian’s #girlboss inspiration is. She says that “Honestly, I definitely just have to say my mom. [She] is such a hard worker, and my work ethic and go-getter [attitude] is from her. She’s my constant inspiration – she’s starting her own business now, and she’s a teacher, and she’s a mom, and she does a thousand other things.”