A vested interest in homeless people

They're young fashion design students, and some dream of one day having their own line of clothing that's distinctive, stylish, and synonymous with their name.

As for their class project, well, haute it was not.

A first it may be, and a challenging one at that: a design that's distinctive, versatile and practical, but not so flashy it invites theft or broadcasts its wearer's situation.

Vests for the homeless.

"I really liked this. I didn't want to see the same old thing," said Megan Dennis, 29, instructor of the "special topics in fashion design" class at the Art Institute of Philadelphia in Center City.

The suggestion that her 10 students design a vest for homeless people was definitely not the same old thing. And unlike many class projects, this one could become reality.

Dennis, who arrived at the school 2 1/2 years ago from Alfred Angelo, the Fort Washington wedding-gown firm, turned the project into a chance for the students to learn about the lives of the homeless while puzzling over how to design of a piece of inexpensive clothing that best meets their needs.

"This project really made me think about the homeless," said Sarah Quarella, 21, who grew up on a farm in Greene, N.Y., and had no experience with homeless people until coming to Philadelphia 3 1/2 years ago.

Dennis' assignment was not an academic exercise.

The idea was George Beasley's. Beasley, 69, is a retired pipefitter who is part of the Pipeline, a group of retirees who use their occupational skills, time and supplies to help missions serving the poor and homeless.

Beasley, of Thornton, had long volunteered at St. Francis Inn, a Kensington mission with a soup kitchen, thrift shop, and women's day center.

"There was one guy I just couldn't get out of my mind," Beasley said. The homeless man was cold on the street, and "there was nothing I could give him to help him stay warm."

Beasley kept thinking about that man, and one day it came to him: a vest, the all-weather garment worn by construction workers.

"The one thing about homeless people and construction workers is that we are both outside 12 hours a day," Beasley said.

Two big problems for the homeless, he said, are staying warm outside and protecting their possessions from theft, especially identification cards and personal items. A vest with many pockets might solve both, he added.

Pipeline members have a lot of skills to draw on, but clothing design is not one of them, Beasley said. He thought the Art Institute might be willing to help.

So on May 7, Beasley went to the institute with a PowerPoint presentation to pitch "Vests for the Homeless" to Deborah Burrill, academic director of fashion design.

"You can't believe how enthusiastically they jumped at this," Beasley said.

The criteria for the vests were a hood, at least six compartments, and material that would be warm, lightweight, long-lasting and stain-resistant.

The students went to a homeless shelter, and watched the award-winning 2000 documentary Dark Days, in which filmmaker Marc Singer lived for two years in a homeless camp in the rail tunnels under New York's Penn Station, Dennis said.

But it didn't take long for the students to do their own research.

Quarella, for example, took her cue from a homeless woman near her South Philadelphia home "who just carried everything on her."

Quarella's prototype, a reversible, brown canvas vest with a red flap, has 14 pockets or compartments.

Dawn Santana, 21, of Edison, N.J., said she had noticed that homeless people sleeping on the street usually crossed their arms across their chest, hands tucked under their chins, for warmth.

So Santana designed her 16-pocket vest with two internal sleeves that let the wearer sleep the same way with arms and hands covered for extra warmth.

And to be practical, if not politically correct, Santana added an internal pocket with a crush-proof cardboard interior for storing loose cigarettes.

Calvin Brown, 20, of Bristol, created a vest "like the one I always wanted to design for myself," in black wool denim.

On Sept. 10, the students showed their prototypes to Beasley and representatives from St. Francis Inn and Project HOME, a leading homeless-services agency in Philadelphia.

Beasley is trying to arrange for several sewing contractors to look at the prototypes, estimate the cost, and tell him how they might best be put into production, he said.

After that, he said, he hopes to find corporate sponsors willing to underwrite production and distribution to area homeless agencies.

Ed Speedling, community liaison for Project HOME's outreach community center, said the prototypes at the Sept. 10 showing impressed him.

"Certainly anything that's warm and has amenities such as pockets with zippers is what homeless people need," Speedling said. But he added that he believed the project had "larger benefits than the actual product."

"The fact that these young people were interested in the way homeless people live with their designs and went and talked with them was tremendous," Speedling said. "I was very happy with the way they approached this project. I think they learned a lot."