Mary McFadden, an acclaimed fashion designer, found inspiration for modern fashion in ancient cultures, she told a crowd at the Warehouse Auditorium on Tuesday afternoon.

“My designs remain faithful to the classical,” said McFadden, who’s been lauded as an “archeological designer” for blurring the lines between fashion and history.

Her lecture, “Goddesses: Symbol of the Ancient World and the Mystery of the Creative Mind,” included a slideshow of her personal photographs taken all over the world juxtaposed with her modern reinterpretations. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session.

Throughout the slideshow, McFadden took audience members on a visual journey through Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Renaissance Europe, China and more historic cultures.

“I photograph peoples of the land, their feel for color and cloth,” she said. It’s these nuances in style that she has discovered all over the world that “removes man from the primordial.”

The lecture functioned as a history lesson and a lesson in McFadden’s artistic taste. She showed photos of horizontal bands elongating the body in Egyptian pharaohs’ tombs juxtaposed with her own contemporary interpretation, a draped white dress with elaborate ornamentation and banding.

McFadden went on to show how the fascination with the moon, the sun, the water and the land in ancient civilizations come into play in her collections. These abstract organic motifs present themselves in many of her evening coats and tunics. Another motif she examined was the pyramid, which exhibits itself in both her jewelry and clothing lines.

McFadden illustrated the inspirations for her different wedding gowns, which have a range of African, Roman and Celtic influences. She showed how nuances present in these ancient cultures manifest themselves in her silhouettes, fabrics and drapery.

McFadden was a self-taught fashion designer, and she said her study of anthropology enabled her to create her designs.

She majored in anthropology in college because the professor fell in love with her, she said.

“Current fashion design students have a much better chance than I had,” McFadden said. “You have teachers. That’s a running head start.”

At the end of her slideshow and lecture, McFadden opened the floor for questions, though some thought she gave mostly half or unfinished answers. Sara Armet, a senior fashion design student, said she wished she could have heard the full answers to her classmates’ questions.

McFadden’s quirky personality came out after someone in the audience asked her to describe herself. She revealed she’d been married 11 times and was once a “play girl.”

“I tried cabaret. It wasn’t good enough,” she said.

Another audience member brought up fashionista Lady Gaga, who McFadden said she admires for straying away from casual fashion. Lady Gaga is one of the reasons why the “tables are turning from people dressing in prison costumes,” McFadden said.

Some students who attended the lecture said they were disappointed that McFadden did not show more of her eccentric personality.

“It was definitely unlike any lecture I’ve been to in college,” said Armet, the senior fashion design student. “Here she is, presenting artifacts on slides and reading a report. It was right out of the 1950s. It was an outdated way of presenting it.”

But Armet said she was able to see the beneficial aspects of the lecture as well.

“She blurred the lines between fashion and artifact,” Armet said. “People are so stuck on being innovative these days, but she brings new life to fashion without having to be over the top. She pulled so directly from history. She recreated it.”

Laura Vientos, a senior fashion design major, said the lecture gave her a good idea of how McFadden would receive students’ work in the personal critiques that followed the lecture. Vientos said she is also inspired by historical periods.

Both Vientos and Armet said they would have liked to get a little more personal background and details on McFadden’s process of getting into the industry and who she worked alongside to do so. Armet and Vientos said they thought the inclusion of these things would have benefited the seniors getting ready to try to break into the fashion world themselves.

Regardless, Armet said she enjoyed the presentation.

“I felt so privileged to be in the room with her,” she said. “You could feel the celebrity presence in the room.”

Published on March 9, 2010 at 12:00 pm