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Picture courtesy of Southwest Minnesota State College
Suree Sompamitwong is a 2022 graduate of Southwest Minnesota State College and might be unveiling a line of streetwear at Vogue Week Minnesota on Sept. 19.
WORTHINGTON — Artwork and style have been two large components of Suree Sompamitwong’s life. Now, they’re coming collectively on the runway at Vogue Week Minnesota.
Sompamitwong, a 2022 graduate of Southwest Minnesota State College, created a clothes line that may make its debut at a style present beginning Monday in Minneapolis.
“It’s been such a whirlwind,” Sompamitwong mentioned of preparing for the present.
Sompamitwong’s clothes model, ArtInvasionz, showcases paintings by Minnesota artists on streetwear like T-shirts and hoodies.
“I need to carry highly effective paintings into our every day lives,” Sompamitwong mentioned.
That was the concept behind ArtInvasionz.
“Artwork isn’t supposed to slot in a field,” she mentioned.
Created in 2015, Vogue Week Minnesota holds spring and fall occasions highlighting the Minnesota style group. This fall, style reveals and different occasions might be held Monday by means of Sept. 24.
For Sompamitwong, designing a clothes line was a return to one thing she’s all the time beloved.
“I knew I wished to be a designer,” she mentioned.
In 2014, Sompamitwong moved to Los Angeles to work within the style trade, and labored her means as much as changing into the inventive director for a girls’s clothes firm.
Sompamitwong returned to Minnesota after struggling together with her psychological well being, and being identified with bipolar dysfunction. Nevertheless, she didn’t cease working with inventive expression.
“Once I returned dwelling, I began diving into holistic therapeutic,” Sompamitwong mentioned.
She based Inventive Therapeutic House, a nonprofit in Worthington that promotes psychological well being and therapeutic by means of artwork.
This yr, Sompamitwong was awarded an Ignite Rural artist residency grant, and he or she determined to carry two of her passions — style and group artwork — collectively.
“I made a decision to do a clothes line,” she mentioned.
Earlier this yr, she put out a name for artists to companion with for the ArtInvasionz model.
“I’d describe it as an edgy streetwear,” Sompamitwong mentioned of ArtInvasionz’s model.
The paintings featured within the clothes line additionally focuses on matters like psychological well being and social justice.
ArtInvasionz was accepted right into a present at Vogue Week Minnesota. It will likely be one of many clothes strains featured on the Coalesce: 1922 style present on Monday. The Coalesce: 1922 present might be centered on AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and folks of colour) voices.
“I’m the one streetwear model,” Sompamitwong mentioned of the present.
She additionally hopes ArtInvasionz will stand out for its message and group connections. Sompamitwong mentioned she labored with the producers of the style present to have the ability to show a number of the unique sculptures and work that have been featured within the ArtInvasionz clothes line.
“That’s tremendous particular,” she mentioned.
It’s onerous to get the complete energy of a bit of paintings by taking a look at a shirt design, she mentioned.
Sompamitwong additionally recruited her personal runway fashions from the Worthington group.
“I wished my fashions to be lovely for who they have been,” she mentioned.
The purpose for ArtInvasionz might be to assist help Inventive Therapeutic House, Sompamitwong mentioned. She mentioned 20% of the proceeds from gross sales of the clothes line will return to the nonprofit.
