This cashmere coat is part of a knitwear collection designed for the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Debut Fashion Show. This garment is a one of a kind design, a fully fashioned knit piece, made on a single bed hand knitting machine with some crochet detail around the waist and the sleeves. The fabric was hand painted with acid dye to give it a more precise gradient effect. The eccentric yet elegant design, forms shapes like origami around the body. The sculptural look was achieved to give a different look from every angle.

Martha’s artwork embraced representational, abstract and non-representational forms singularly in images or in various forms throughout a composition. Most of her work has been inspired by her longing and nostalgia and memory of her homeland, Colombia. Her work therefore, is imbued with an emotional and visual power unique to her inner spirit and maturity and added greatly to the multi-multiculturalism and the university wide emphasis placed on “internationalism”. Martha’s studio practice has been diligent, productive and passionate; full of investigation and self-reflection along with experimentation. It was evident in her visual statements, how engaged she was with emblematic images that reflected in color, form, rhythm…and a play between field and ground that sought out the most interesting themes and variations reminiscent in her cultural heritage and her life in America. Martha developed a studio practice which is mature in its approach and execution, and is pro-active in researching materials and processes, and she was inquisitive and curious about contemporary trends in the printmaking field; and developed a deeper willingness and execution of a unique and personalized idealization. always adapting new techniques to her work in new and surprising ways.

The design aesthetic comes from artisan work. Some of the qualities are dimension, depth, and the sculptural feel which makes it unique. The handmade touch can be appreciated everywhere on the garment. One of the advantages of knitting a garment is to be able to have control over the fabric as well as texture, content, weight, color, and shape. Dimensional Knitwear has the ability to hug the contours of the human body thus transforming the knitted garment into a whole new silhouette.