By Their Own Design

Jane H. Van Cleef ’06 learned to sew at her parents’ knees—her mother made bean bags, her father was a quilter. By high school, she had several catalogues and prom dresses to her name. Harvard has benefited from her skills via the stage: last year, she was praised for her work on Richard III and Cabaret, and she’s at work on the costumes for this fall’s Faust. She makes almost everything she wears.

Neasa Coll ’05 started making clothes more out of necessity than recreation. “During a break from high school in Wales,” she recalls, “I went home and made as many things out of wool as possible. It’s really cold and wet there.” In her first year at Harvard, Coll dabbled in costuming for plays; these days, with the help of a roommate’s sewing machine, she uses her fashion powers to “make style for the people,” as she puts it. “Clothes shouldn’t be a luxury good,” she says. “We need a fashion democracy.”