Steve Coté
Fashion Design BFA
Parsons School of Design
Graduates: 2023
Specialisms: Apparel / Menswear / Textile Innovation/Textile Art
My location: New York, United States
Steve Coté
First Name: Steve
Last Name: Coté
University / College: Parsons School of Design
Course / Program: Fashion Design BFA
Graduates: 2023
Specialisms: Apparel / Menswear / Textile Innovation/Textile Art
My Location: New York, United States
Website: Click To See Website
About
My name is Steve Coté, and I am originally from New Jersey. I grew up skateboarding and surfing and working for my dad’s landscaping business. I started going to punk and rock & roll shows at a young age and went to car races at the dragstrip often. When I was a teenager a began painting, which I would go on to do for a decade. I just graduated from Parsons in May 2023 with a BFA in Fashion Design after deciding to go back to school in my mid 20’s. These things helped shape me as a designer and they all come through in my work and my overall aesthetic, mainly my blue-collar and painting backgrounds. I enjoy experimenting with materiality and wash processes as I am fascinated by garments that are well-worn and lived in, so I try to recreate that look by hand, with various techniques such as my self-developed wash processes and hand distressing methods. These results are also accompanied by an arsenal of mediums such as: paints, dyes, wheat paste, inks, and also industrial materials including: roof sealer, grout, caulk, concrete, motor oil and bondo. My adventurous take on materiality and overall DIY approach to design makes me an optimal candidate for this position as I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty and search outside of the box for the solutions needed that will take designs to the next level.
The 'Distal Device' is an autobiographical collection that is a product of two societal circles that I find myself living in. Those circles are my blue-collar upbringing and my life now as a designer. I often speak about how I live two separate lives due to these circles and how they and the people in them don't relate to each other in many ways. The word Distal is defined as the furthest point from an object's center, making me the "Distal Point" within these circles as I belong to both, but don't fully feel a part of either of them. As I constructed the collection, I became the "Distal Device". The collection is a physical depiction of how I have one foot in and one foot out of both worlds. Some of the ways I intended to successfully get this idea across is by taking cues from industrial materials, the wear and tear of "work clothes" and the environments they exist in, and applying it to tailored, well-constructed mens wear pieces. Another way is by my materiality techniques such as my self-developed wash processes, hand distressing, textile manipulations, hand painted details, and the use of industrial materials such as roof sealer, house paint, and hardware that reference aspects of blue-collar spaces.
Competitions
