California Apparel News

Students in Cynthia Banks’ advanced sewing class at Santee Education Complex are scattered around industrial tables, cutting patterns and pinning and stitching garments that will be shown at the high school’s upcoming Dec. 19 fashion show. The winter presentation is a preview of the school’s annual fashion show in April, which awards cash prizes to the top three students’ collections. Under Banks’ instruction and using vintage patterns and Consew professional sewing machines, her best students are further along than some of the pupils at the nearby Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, Banks said.

The incentive of cash prizes propels a competitive spirit in the students who have progressed to concocting original designs. “Now they get so secretive,” Banks said. “One of them goes in the back of the room and closes the door. They want to put sheets up [as curtains].” Some students that are off track return to Banks’ classroom during vacation to work on their garments.

Banks’ sewing classes are electives at Santee Education Complex, which neighbors the Los Angeles Fashion District. The school opened in 2005 and is organized into small learning communities with different focuses, including School of Design (which includes Banks’ sewing classes); Construction & Architecture; Travel, Tourism & Culinary Arts; Public Service & Social Justice; Arts & Entertainment; and Business, Technology & Finance. Santee was organized this way because “the personalization aspect is much stronger,” said Janet Hackett, assistant principal for the School of Design. Students generally have the same instructors and classmates throughout their high school years within each small learning community. The school population nears 3,700 students on a year-round schedule.

With the fashion district less than a mile away from the school, Banks puts to use the professional resources at hand to enhance the students’ learning experience. Field trips have ranged from fabric and supplies shopping at Michael Levine to an ambitious trip in which 13 students traveled to Paris through Education First tours in July.

In October, 10 students attended the Tulle and Cloth Logic fashion show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, Calif., with the help of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office. Students were chosen by Banks and Trebor Jacquez, who teaches filmmaking, computer graphic design, art history and Web-design classes. Jacquez, who has taken his design students to local museums and advertising firms, said the field trip to Smashbox Studios gave the students a wider perspective on the industry. “Mostly, when people think about fashion, you think models. But they were able to see everything—from the food being catered to the valet parkers to the filmmakers,” Jacquez said. One of his students, who is interested in photography, was inspired after witnessing the photo pit in action. “He had more of a focus of: ’Wow. I can see myself doing that,’” he said.

Jessica Sifuentes, a senior in Banks’ class, said of the Los Angeles Fashion Week experience: “It was awesome. I got to meet new people, not the same people from around here.”

Most of the students that attend the Santee high school live in the low-income neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Out of a class of 32 students, Banks said, only about four say they plan to go to college.

“[The] mentality level of these kids is totally different from when I taught at Palos Verdes [High School] or Carson High School,” Banks said. “Kids in this area, you have to really inspire and constantly pat them on the back and tell them how they are doing good and everything, or you lose them. When I was teaching in Carson High School or Palos Verdes, they have their parents there motivating them. Right here, we don’t.”

The school aims to prepare students for college academically with Advanced Placement classes, said Vice Principal Hackett, adding that those who do not continue on to higher education will graduate with a leg up in the competitive job market.

“It’s not always easy, even with scholarships, to afford to go to college—and with budget cuts, it’s going to get even rougher,” Hackett said. “So to be able to come out of high school with a talent and a skill, that is my goal for them—that they have the opportunity to have higher than a minimum-wage job or go straight into the career that they choose.”