The Art of Fashion: Botanicals

Rebecca Wendlandt 

Sewing and design have been a part of my life almost as long as I can remember. I first learned how to sew when I was five, and when I did, a realm of infinite creative possibilities was opened. In 2006, I graduated from UC Davis with a Bachelor of Science in Fashion and Textile Design and a minor in Spanish. For my senior signature fashion collection. I designed a five-piece women’s evening wear line titled “Insect Couture” inspired by the silhouettes, shapes, colors, and textures of insects and arachnids. Later in 2006, I started my business, “Rebecca Wendlandt LLC” and continued my work in wearable art and custom fashion design. 

Maha Jumaié Taitåno  

Maha is a sculpture and installation artist and works with all mediums from metals, wood, fabrics, papers, and more. Maha is a CHamoru (from Guam) and Iraqi artist born in Baghdad and moved to the East Bay in California. Then in 2017 Maha returned to UC Santa Cruz to obtain a second Bachelor in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. This degree helped shape and shift the approach and subject matter stems from the art concepts and political statements Maha now focuses on. She completed an MFA in Visual Arts at Vermont College of the Fine Arts in February 2023. Maha’s work has mostly focused on the subject of identities and the many layered aspects and positionalities of one’s identity. Currently she is practicing decolonizing her education as a Pacific Islander and Arab artist. Researching pre-colonized, pre-modern religion and indigenous matriarchal epistemologies from her two cultures are currently guiding her subject matter and her practice. Her process of creating is extremely important to her and this element comes through in her work in two main aspects: first, multiples and repetition and second, choice in medium and the history or effect of the medium.

Mariclare McKnight   

Mariclare McKnight is an artist and designer based in Santa Cruz, CA. Working between art and fashion, she creates garments and objects that interact with light, movement and the body. She is the founder of the small-batch leather brand CADETTE.  Inspired by nature and the inherent qualities of materials, her work explores clothing as a form of living sculpture, metals, wood, fabrics, papers, and more. 

Purple Maroon x  Yuliya Bacani    

Josephine Tchang founder and designer for Purple Maroon, and Yuliya Bacani are two creatives who love to add something fun to their one-of-a-kind pieces made from upcycled denim.  

When Simon Met Ralph: Simon Ungless & Jody Niederkohr     

When Simon Met Ralph is the creative vision of Simon Ungless and Jody Niederkohr, a collaboration rooted in over 40 years of combined experience in the fashion industry. With a deep commitment to sustainability and artistic reinvention, the duo focuses on the rehabilitation of previously worn garments, accessories, and gently used home goods. Each piece is transformed through thoughtful craftsmanship, utilizing diverse textile techniques such as printmaking, felting, and dyeing. At the heart of the project lies a desire to breathe new life into the forgotten and discarded by merging fashion, art, and conscious living into one-of-a-kind, wearable stories.  

Vasily Vein     

Vasily Vein is a Sausalito based designer who was born in Uzbekistan and raised in Moscow. He knew from the age of 13 that he wanted to be a designer. He worked in a factory that manufactured clothing and started to build his own business in the evenings and weekends. 

After new laws passed in Russia under Vladimir Putin persecuted those who identified as LGBTQ, Vasily and his partner made the tough decision to emigrate to the United States. Since 2010 he has built up a couture clientele in San Francisco. 

 Vasily Vein’s design philosophy showcases the personality of the woman who wears his gowns, emphasizing her characteristics. He captures this by using unique fabrics, bold prints, captivating colors, incredible cuts, and unexpected geometry. 

Sara Shepherd      

Sara Shepherd’s eponymous clothing brand focuses on craft that blends the tailoring and structure of her British upbringing with the modernity and functionality of a California life. 

As a designer who loves to work in 3D, Sara meticulously combines traditional craftsmanship with unique and innovative construction techniques. Each piece is created, developed and handcrafted in her downtown Los Angeles studio where fit, shape, elements and details are an obsession that result in a range of strong, sustainable, sophisticated garments.” 

Camelia Skikos       

Camelia Skikos is a conceptual womenswear brand based in San Francisco and launched in 2010 by the Romanian designer who gives the brand its name. While developing her brand as a creative playground to explore new aesthetic boundaries Camelia is continuing to consult for other fashion and tech companies as well. Since 2014 she is consulting for Google on wearable technology designing smart garments using interactive textile. Camelia Skikos design philosophy stems from a continuing fascination with the way garments can make an impact on our lives, based on the unconscious relations between the human being and the garments we wear. 

Kija Lucas        

Kija Lucas is an artist, curator, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She uses photography to explore ideas of home, heritage and inheritance. She is interested in how ideas are passed down and how seemingly inconsequential moments create changes that last generations. Her work has been exhibited at San Francisco Camerawork, Oakland Museum of California, Montalvo Art Center, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries, California Institute of Integral Studies, Palo Alto Arts Center, Intersection for the Arts, Mission Cultural Center, and Root Division. Lucas has been an artist-in-residence at Montalvo Arts Center, Recology and The Wassaic Artist Residency. Lucas received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her MFA from Mills College. She is currently the curator of the arts at the California Institute of Integral Studies. 

Pantea Karimi        

Pantea Karimi is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Jose, California. She worked and studied in Iran and the UK before settling in the US in 2005. Since 2014, her work has been focused on the interconnectivity of art and science by exploring select historical objects and scientific manuscripts of medicinal botany and mathematics from Iran, Arab regions, and Europe. Growing up in post-revolutionary Iran and later emigrating to the UK and then the US, her life and sensibilities have been intensely influenced by war, religion, and politics. Utilizing multimedia and balancing harmony and tension, Karimi creates syncretic imagery and narratives to claim female agency and highlight her cultural heritage as it intertwines with geopolitical tensions. Her work includes installations, virtual reality, three-dimensional objects, video, animation, sound, print, and drawing. 

Karimi is a 2024 City of San Jose Creative Ambassador, a 2023 Kala Art Institute Honoree, and a 2019 Silicon Valley Artist Laureate. She is the recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant (2022), City of San Jose Arts and Cultural Exchange Grant (2019) and Artist Residencies at MASS MoCA (2022 and 2024), Santa Fe Art Institute (2024), University of California San Francisco Library (2021-2022) and Kala Art Institute Fellowship (2017). Karimi’s works have been exhibited in exhibitions in Iran, Algeria, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, the UK, and the United States. KQED Arts & Culture published an article on Karimi’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom work followed by a live interview on KQED Forum, aired on April 26, 2023. 

Akiko Yamashita         

Akiko Yamashita is a Los Angeles-based, Japanese artist. She is known for immersive installations using light, projection mapping, and real-time 3D animation to transform our perception with her prism-inspired full spectrum of colors. As an artist, she visualizes “invisible existences” in nature. Her work references and is drawn from Japanese animism, where every existence has a spirit or soul. 

A former dancer turned animator, Yamashita welcomes viewers to fully immerse themselves within her artworks. Hana Fubuki (2019), exhibited at ARTECHOUSE, translates viewers’ hand movements into gusts of wind that swirl colorful cherry blossom blizzards. Forest Perception (2021) surrounds viewers in a giant forest canopy and roots projected on opposing sides of the building. Eureka! (2021) lets viewers stimulate neurons with gestures. Where does water come from? (2020) illustrates the cycle of water from atomic to ocean state. 

Featured as one of the new generation of makers in an Apple keynote film presented by Tim Cook, Yamashita also creates architectural public art light installations, including her interactive hallway Portal (2015) in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles, which won the A’Design Silver Award. 

Sudnya Shroff          

I am a storyteller. I recognize that uncertainty is home to infinite possibilities; not knowing is most intimate; and love is the answer to fear.  

I am drawn to joining hands with fellow humans seeking collective liberation. My Indian roots, my immigrant American experience, my early rigorous training and work in technology, subsequent entrepreneurial ventures and my role as a nurturer form the bedrock of my value system and inform whatever it is I’m called to do.  

I am passionate about art and awe-inspiring beauty as an end in and of itself. A valuable insight from my journey through art has awakened me to its most powerful side effect — its potential to transform pain so that we stop transmitting it.