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Oakland high school senior Zachary Fernandez made it to the finale of the first season of Project Runway Junior, then went straight back to the Oakland School of the Arts to continue his design studies. His new collection, Kathmandu, is inspired by the rebuilding efforts in Nepal after the devastating 2015 earthquake. Art School followed Fernandez's process as he sketched, researched fabric and designed his new project, revealed during of a fashion show culminating in spring 2016.

Hello, my name is Zachary Fernandez and I am currently a fashion student. So I'm starting my Kathmandu 2016 collection. My collection is going to debut at my school's fashion show, so I have just under seven weeks to put everything together. Our school mission was therefore to choose a city from which we wanted to draw inspiration for this collection. I finished with Kathmandu, Nepal, all the issues they went through last year were really inspiring and I was able to take these ideas of imbalance and destruction of culture and apply them to this new collection. These are the pieces I ended up designing. They're constantly evolving and they're kind of always evolving. My drawing process involves a lot of images, a lot of mixed media, I like to do collages, watercolors, acrylic clay, it's a true reflection of what my mind is like. Here you have the latest sketches I made. The drawing process for me is really a major step between ideas and this fantasy world that I have created in my mind to result in truly functional wearable pieces. Fabric sourcing is one of my favorite things to do. It's really like a group activity, like meeting a few friends, we're just going to go there, we're going to explore the city, we're going to get inspired. So I'm looking for a very pale blue that's almost very silvery, and then I'm going to look for a very deep rusty orange color. Okay, so I need to find this, but in a more grayish blue. The fabric store is one of those places where you go in with one idea, one concept, and one thought, and come out with about 500 more. That's it.

– That's it!

– That's it.

– [Girl] Man!

– Hey! Yes! So I spend the majority of my time draping and it's definitely a part that will make or break a room. I took a piece of muslin, which is just a very basic blended fabric, and started sculpting it into the shape of the dress. And then these models that I make from the shape of the dress are then adjusted to the model, and sometimes I try them on a mannequin, I say to myself, it's hideous, I don't know why, it dominates her or something. thing happens and it leads to even better ideas and even fairer creativity. When you're designing while you're creating, I just think it takes a lot more time and you like putting pressure on yourself a lot more. So my design mind is off. And it's just sewing, and sewing, and sewing, and sewing, and sewing. So after I'm done draping, I take part of this mockup and I totally tear it up and reshape it, then I cut out from my real fabric. It's always very nerve-wracking because a lot of times the fabric is all you have, either the budget doesn't allow you to get more fabric or there just isn't any left. It has this box-like structure. The box is actually lined with horsehair so that it can take the shape and that's why I'm kind of trying to manipulate it right now because it takes the shape that you really need. The show, oh the show. Six days in, and I'm still cutting fabric, I don't think that's normal. There will always be that last minute rush and it will end up as a state of being. I have an idea in my head of how this is supposed to go, but who knows if it actually happens that way. I think there can be many different ways to read the look. Obviously you look for the main elements like color, silhouette, is it an evening piece, is it a day piece and you just put the garment on and choose certain categories and that really helps people read fashion, by the time the piece is on the catwalk, I'm already thinking about a whole new collection and I'm really thinking about something totally different, but it doesn't really strike me that these people, for them, it's the first time that 'they see that. I spent months and months planning, drawing and putting it together. If I see all these different things in these pieces, but no one else sees it, then it's a little sad, but it's also part of what makes fashion art, it's because people see it in so many different ways. We are in my house, studio and bedroom in Berkeley, California. I have this look from Project Runway Junior, which was the first episode, and this look for my most recent collection. They really mean a lot to me because they show the progress I've made over the last four or five months.

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