Things people do when they’re bored: rearrange their sock drawer, flick rubber bands at unsuspecting strangers, watch Perfect Strangers marathons, invent a super-hip fashion camp for children between the ages of 7 and 14.
True story. At least for Maria DeLisi-Minichiello, who found herself with two degrees and too much time on her hands and created Project: Fashion Camp, a fashion-industry primer based in Concord. Now, with five sessions behind her and dozens of children enrolling each summer, she can’t picture a life without it.
“It’s funny, anyone who knows me knows I’m not a planner. I had graduated with a second degree and was just a little bored and didn’t know what to do, and I literally just thought, why not start a fashion design camp?,” DeLisi-Minichiello said. “I combined my two passions – working with children and fashion design.”
Those passions have certainly served her well. DeLisi-Minichiello has what she termed “a very small children’s clothing line” and runs an online company that focuses on marketing and advertising for emerging designers. But she’s always been dedicated to opening doors to the fashion world at an early age, so she took advantage of the opportunity and began running the week-long summer program at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate that ends with a fashion show featuring the student creations.
Children spend the week learning about all aspects of the fashion industry, from designing to construction to modeling. Students spend the early portion of the week learning about portfolio design, then design the garment they want to make, create the patterns and sew it all together. Enrollment has grown in such a way that DeLisi-Minichiello was able to separate the age groups for the first time this summer, piding the group into a 7-9-year old group and a 10-14-year old group.
“I wish people could be a fly on the wall when we do the camp, because we do so much work,” DeLisi-Minichiello said. “We literally touch base on most every aspect of the fashion industry. They get to choose whatever they want and then pattern it, and by Wednesday on we actually sew it. Some children have had some experience, and some have never even touched a thread and a needle. But they all make it themselves.”
Campers are encouraged to return each year if they remain interested, and DeLisi-Minichiello said she sees tremendous progress from one year to the next. But even those who are at camp for the first time can be entirely different designers at the end of the week than they were at the beginning.
“We have a morning meeting and an afternoon meeting every day, and that first Monday in the morning meeting, no one says a word. But by literally half of the day on Monday, they are wild,” DeLisi-Minichiello said. “Sometimes the fashion industry is portrayed in a negative way for children and girls, and we try to engage them in a positive manner, that the fashion industry is a positive thing. It’s artistic, it’s creative, it’s not always what you see in magazines. Their confidence flies off the roof within hours.”
DeLisi-Minichiello relies on what she called “an incredible staff” of two full-time participants and three high school volunteers at any given time, plus herself. The idea is to keep the student-to-staff ratio manageable in order to supervise use of things like the sewing machines, and also to optimize student engagement and learning opportunities. Classes have typically been between 20 and 25 students, DeLisi-Minichiello said, and she tries to keep the student-to-teacher ratio around 3-to-1.
Aside from learning to design a garment from start to finish, the young designers are also given some “designer challenges,” including the ever-popular recycled fashion project, where designers must make an outfit out of entirely recycled material. The challenge produces full outfits made out of newspapers and cereal boxes and forever changes the way the children look at the recycling bin.
“You’re forced to use your creative power so quickly. Sometimes people overthink it, and with art and design you never should overthink it,” DeLisi-Minichiello said. “Just do what you feel. It’s incredible the creativity you see, things like tutus out of pizza boxes. They come out with some really fun pieces. And they’re little fashionistas when it comes to the modeling.”
Modeling is certainly part of the education process, as well. In her quest to expose the students to as much of the industry as possible, DeLisi-Minichiello tries to bring a guest model into the course to offer insight into that specific field.
DeLisi-Minichiello’s credentials are sturdy – before designer her own line she attended Fashion Institute of Technology and worked for several years in the industry – but her work at the higher levels has done little to diminish her enjoyment working with children. Quite the opposite, actually.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it. It’s rewarding. These 7-to-14-year old girls inspire me to do so much more,” DeLisi-Minichiello said. “The purpose is to gain the confidence in these girls, and even though they may not have experience sewing, all the way to walking down the runway at the fashion show we try to instill confidence in them always. They make you feel good about doing it, and we always want to make them feel good about doing it.”
DeLisi-Minichiello began with a summer session and offered one winter session, but the February weather proved tricky to plan around. Her next full session will take place beginning toward the end of next spring, though she is offering Saturday workshops this fall that will focus on pattern making and sewing. She has students who attend the camp from Meredith and Salem and Danville, noting that some commute more than one hour, each way, to take part.
And that’s what keeps DeLisi-Minichiello coming back, as she continues to turn her boredom-born adventure into a budding fashion education empire.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it has taken some time to develop,” DeLisi-Minichiello said, noting that enrollment has grown each year. “But I’m very pleased. I’m blessed; it’s a great community, and it makes my job easier having such great kids attend the camp.”
To learn more about Project: Fashion Camp, visit projectfashioncamp.com.
