Hannah Cali Trauger’s graduate collection ‘A Child At Heat’ took inspiration from the concept of growth. Growth to her was effortless but acknowledgment was another story. Hannah’s collection is meant to embody the hard truth of growing up and explores that unique relationship between child, young adult and elder with the attempt to break the traditions. She believes that every-one has a child at heart, it is just a matter of finding it and that is what she intended to do. She wanted her customers to wear the collection whilst feeling like they are wearing a small piece of their childhood and have the ability to connect with their growth rather than fear it.
When it came to choosing a color palette, Hannah wanted to take inspiration from a child's crayon box. Pulling all of the bright and vibrant colors that a child often is intrigued by and putting them together to create a complex but complimentary range of colors. For fabrics she picked from a wide range of different jerseys all the way to crepe Lurex. She stated that she chose to do some of the collection based around the jersey while it is what is most often used in children's garments and gives off a very pure aesthetic.
Over 300,000 pieces of clothing are tossed into landfills weekly in the UK. One leading cause of this vast number is children’s clothes. The average toddler grows out of as many as 7 sizes within a two years period. The effects of this are extensive. This led Hannah to the realization that she, as a young designer, had the choice to impact these numbers. This mindset gave her the idea to design around used childrens garments. With the help of a seam ripper she was able to deconstruct the childrens clothes and form a collection all based around this concept. The children's garments, once deconstructed and placed onto the body felt for some unique silhouettes which were pulled through into her designs.
When considering fabric manipulation Hannah knew that she wanted to explore options that were colorful and busy. She mentioned that because parts of her garments were upcycle she could not have control over how intercity the silhouette would become so she made the choice to focus in on her manipulations and make that her statement. She worked with different types of embroideries, some that were created into patterns and others that represent childrens toys such as the heart jewel shown in the photo above. One of the more unique elements was the twist on children's loom bands, which she took into her own hands to repurpose and create detail within the garments using them.
