Alumna makes a name for herself in the fashion world

Keely Cansler became interested in fashion in high school after taking a sewing class, so she signed up to do the Step Program at N.C . State her junior year. Now she is competing in fashion design competitions and interning with a prominent New York based fashion company.

“[The Step Program] was a program where you have to start at the beginning; do a sketch and learn how to draft a pattern, and cut and sew and create a final product,” Cansler said.

Enjoying the experience, she continued to work on design, came to NCSU and was accepted into the Anni Albers program, a dual-degree program between the College of Textiles and the College of D esign .

“That program really focuses on fabric design and fabric composition, anything from dying to screen printing to weaving – anything you can think of in terms of producing fabric. So I just took it upon myself to take that and use it in my designs,” Cansler said.

She immediately began incorporating the techniques she learned into her designs. “For my first art-to-wear collection I knitted my own fabric and dyed it…and for the second I designed a woven pattern and had that woven at the College of Design,” Cansler said. “That’s one of my favorites: dying fabric.”

Now Cansler will be competing in the annual Charleston Fashion Week.

“It has earned and gained a reputation; our winners in the past of our designer competition have gone on to do great and big things,” Misty Johnson, the marketing director for the Charleston Fashion Week, said about the event.

“What we feel this competition has done is given these designers an opportunity to show in front of an extremely prestigious fashion panel that we bring in,” Johnson said.

Cansler hopes to impress this panel with her designs and represent the Anni Albers scholars.

“It’s very rare in the world that scientists, technical people and designers talk to each other; this group of students goes out into the world and often acts as translators between these two worlds,” Vita Plume, art and design associate professor, said about Cansler and the rest of the Anni Albers scholars.

Plume also showed some of Cansler’s past work, such as her ‘Art-to-Wear’ collection that was presented at NCSU . Not only did Cansler create her own fabric, but the designs were elegant, unique, and expressive. For dresses designed for the theme ‘five stages of grief,’ she made bold choices like attaching the sleeves of a dress to its sides and accessorizing another with a sharp-looking metal headdress. 

 ”Her work is very conceptually based. She can construct anything, but for her, it’s the idea that’s important,” Plume said.

Cansler most recently interned this past summer in New York with one of her inspirations, Proenza Schouler .

“They do a lot of interesting prints and designs – especially shibori ,” Cansler said. Shibori is a Japanese style of dying cloth after twisting and folding it.

“I loved it, every minute of it. I helped with everything from what’s called line sheets to the fittings, and even cutting out fabric,” Cansler said referring to the internship. Line sheets are records of information about the clothing, including things like pictures, sketches, and prices.

For her own designs, Cansler usually chooses a theme that inspires her throughout the line of clothing; for the Charleston fashion week, her theme has been chandeliers.

“I’ve always been obsessed with chandeliers because of their delicate complexities, their beauty and their function across the different decades,” Cansler said. She’s been working on incorporating many different aspects of the chandeliers, including their crystals and antiquity.

“I was inspired by the shadows…and the colors from the beams through the crystals of the lights also affected my fabric and materials choices,” Cansler said. “One really cool thing I’m doing is taking old chandeliers from junkyards…I’m taking them apart and making the jewelry and some of the accessories out of those.”

Nevertheless, her line of clothing for the Charleston Fashion week isn’t going to be quite as radical as it was at NCSU ; she’s actually trying a new style of design for this competition.

“I’m doing prêt-à-porter , or ready-to-wear, because typically in the past I’ve done art-to-wear…. This will be the first ready-to-wear line I’ve done,” Cansler said.

Plume, however, has the utmost confidence in Cansler and is excited to cheer her on. “She really integrates what she learned here with her imagination,” Plume said.

Cansler’s avant-garde designs can be seen on her website at keelylauren.carbonmade.com .