Popular lifestyle magazine turns SCAD-Atlanta into catwalk

Photo by Freddie Bennett
Fashion photographer Tom Fahey (left) uses the SCAD-Atlanta entryway as a backdrop for model Dominique Davis (right). Atlanta Magazine selected SCAD-Atlanta as the venue for its fall fashion spread.

By: Faith Carmichael

Published: Friday, July 28, 2006

For nine hours June 29, the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta was transformed into a scene right out of a high-fashion magazine — Atlanta Magazine, to be precise.

The quarterly lifestyle magazine chose the SCAD-Atlanta facility as the location of choice for its fall fashion spread – a five-page pictorial of the hottest trends in women’s fashion for the upcoming season.

The magazine crew, consisting of two art directors, a fashion director, a photographer, a stylist and a makeup artist, as well as two models from Chicago’s Elite modeling agency, started bright and early at 8 a.m.

The crew set up a giant table for supplies behind the Peachtree Street lobby. They converted the second-floor women’s restroom into a dressing room and added clothing steamers and a models’ changing area before erecting a maze of  photography equipment throughout the four-story building.

Then there were the clothes — hangers upon hangers of menswear-inspired women’s fashions bearing haute couture designer labels such as Chanel, Escada, Stella McCartney, Oscar de la Renta and Louis Vuitton. Accompanying the fancy duds were hundreds of shoes, hats and other high-fashion accessories.

The SCAD-Atlanta facility, with its brightly hued, state-of-the-art interior, served as a dramatic backdrop for the shoot. Atlanta Magazine photographer Thomas Fahey shot hundreds of images of the two models in numerous locations throughout the building, including the neon-lit main entrance, the futuristic Sphere and the antique elevator banks on the second floor.

“Selecting SCAD-Atlanta as the location for the magazine’s fall fashion spread was an obvious choice,” said Jennifer Green, the magazine’s fashion editor. “We were looking for a modern space, specific to Atlanta, with a very unique look, that also would provide a creative backdrop to the tailored, menswear-inspired fashions we were portraying. SCAD was the first place we thought of.”

SCAD-Atlanta students, staff and faculty got a sneak preview of the new fashion trends for fall, which, Green said, are all about “sharp, tailored clothing with a feminine, elegant edge.”

SCAD, whose fashion department already has a solid reputation as one of the best in the United States, is experiencing a growing presence in the fashion world with the success of its annual fashion show in Savannah, collaborations with fashion icons like Vera Wang and André Leon Talley, and last spring’s launch of SCAD Style Week.

“We are extremely proud of our campus design, which is very unique and leading-edge,” said P.J. Johnson, vice president of SCAD-Atlanta. “We are equally pleased to have one of Atlanta’s premier magazines use our facility as a backdrop for their high-caliber photography layouts.”

Of the hundreds of photos Fahey shot, 10 will be featured in five two-page, full-color magazine spreads. The quarterly magazine, which reaches more than 70,000 subscribers, will hit newsstands Sept. 1.


Carmichael is assistant director of communications at SCAD-Atlanta.