Immersive Fashion Experience

The Lower School Activities Hall has become an immersive celebration of creativity, collaboration, and student agency thanks to a Grade 5 fashion and design installation led by Lower School Arts teacher Dianne Johnson and Lower School Maker teacher CeCe Tahtinen.

What began as a reflection on students’ growing interest in fashion design evolved into a fully student-driven creative production blending visual arts, engineering, storytelling, sound design, fabrication, and filmmaking, all skills that reflect Mount Vernon’s commitment to innovation, collaboration, creativity, and learner agency.
Students organized themselves into 13 fashion houses, including Petite Pearly, Pink People, Sweatshirt Bros, Velvet Vogue, Fantasy’s Real, and Chill Spray Productions. Each group developed its own aesthetic vision through mood boards, color palettes, clothing collections, and installation concepts.

But the experience extended far beyond fashion design.

Every Grade 5 student held a role within the larger production ecosystem, participating on teams including:

• Set Design Team
• Graffiti Crew
• Documentary Crew
• Sound Design Team
• MCs (Masters of Ceremony)

Students collaborated across homerooms and schedules, navigating timelines, creative pivots, and production challenges together. The result is a hallway filled with oversized mushrooms, sculptural pearls, painted backdrops, wearable art, spray-painted fashion, and documentary storytelling, all designed and built by students.

“This project was so kid-centered,” said Tahtinen. “It’s almost middle-school centered, because they showed us that they’re ready for Middle School, the conversations, the socializing, the problem-solving, and the independence.” “There was a lot of jumping in,” Tahtinen shared. “If someone was working on something, another student would just jump in and help.”

For Johnson, one of the most powerful aspects of the unit was watching students grow in confidence and leadership.

“There were students that blossomed during this process,” she said. “The way they swooped in to support each other was absolutely amazing.”

The project also highlighted the power of student choice and trust, core components of Mount Vernon’s strategic vision for learning. “We talk a lot about student choice,” Johnson said. “I asked students: If y’all want to do this, how are we going to execute it? Can we able lock in and get it done? They trusted themselves. They trusted us.”

As Grade 5 students prepare to cross campus into Middle School, the installation stands as more than an art showcase. It is evidence of students developing the collaboration, communication, creativity, and self-direction needed for what comes next.

“We can really see that they are ready to move on,” said Tahtinen. “This project shows what happens when you trust students, give them independence, and set high expectations.”

Come Experience the Installations

Grade 4 students also contributed handmade accessories as part of a “moving up” project connected to next year’s Grade 5 experience.

The Grade 5 fashion and design installations will remain on display in the Lower School Activities Hall through Friday morning. Families and visitors are encouraged to stop by and experience the creativity, collaboration, and craftsmanship behind the work before the installations are taken home.