Evanston "Dress Art-piece" on Display in Mayor's Office
For Colette Green, the process of creating this piece of art allowed her to portray the faces and atmosphere of Evanston in the best way possible. Evanston is packed with a variety of special places—from the Downtown shopping area to Northwestern University.
In her piece, she used memorabilia that represented Evanston best from flyers and pins to stickers and brochures. She picked a simple pattern, muslin, and thread. Through the process of zig-zag stitching, she hand-sewed different types of buttons—including gold, blue and pink buttons. Colette’s approach to the artwork involved choosing different types and colors of buttons to represent the diversity of people who live in Evanston.
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Colette Green and the History behind the Evanston Dress
As her sophomore year at Evanston Township High School came to an end, Colette Green wanted to carry on in the Junior Leadership Program. She started by being on the Dreams Delivered Committee.
Dreams Delivered is an organization that allows young women to donate dresses, heels and cocktail purses for girls at her high school that do not have formal attire to attend prom and other events. Even the local beauty school, Pivot Point, pitched in, giving the girls a night to remember with fancy hair and make up. Besides her community service background, she got the chance to take a weekend course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Garment Construction. Taking this class gave her more of an outlook on her aspirations, specifically in regards to Art Under Glass.
Art Under Glass is a program that allows individuals to enter photos, a summary and an artist statement into a contest, to potentially display art in a vacant storefront in Evanston, a chance to show off one’s artistic work in the community. Colette chose to make a dress for Evanston. From garment construction, she learned how to draft pieces with muslin and create pieces with cotton. Her commemorating piece of art represents her hometown Evanston. Her piece included a watermelon colored lining, purple tulle, a zipper, dark purple bias tape and last, her trademark, a homemade garment tag. Her middle name Najah, which means success in Arabic, is on the tag.
Her work strives to represent the multiracial backgrounds of Evanston residents, all represented by diverse buttons on the dress. Creating this dress will allow residents to admire those who make up this city.
The mayor's office is located on the Second Floor of the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.