Q+A with Cameron Smith
Pratt Institute BFA 2026
DRIFT
In Next Gen / No Kill, we spotlight standout fashion graduates whose work opens up new conversations and possibilities. From New York’s top programs and beyond, these are the designers shaping a future of fashion defined by intelligence, creativity, and intention.
What is the inspiration or concept behind your collection?
Drift is a collection about lived history, holding age on the body as an embodiment of memory. Rooted in early experiences growing up in Texas, it draws from wooden elements as both structure and metaphor, materials that preserve, and soften through use.
The collection considers time as collective and accumulative, shaped by what we carry and what we leave behind.
Utility becomes a form of protection, making the body through function and structure, while romance exists as memory, soft and emotional. In this marriage, garments act as both armor and intimacy, holding and translating lived experience into form.
What’s one material or technique you’re currently obsessed with?
I loved working wood onto the body, I developed pieces of driftwood, these pieces each carry
their own organically beautiful shape and color, collected from Texas and Michigan, each is
drilled, glossed, and then strung on a chain to build into a reclaimed leather bomber.
What does fashion mean to you today?
Fashion is so celebrated today, it has become expression, art, and universally necessary since its creation, not only as a self embodiment, but as a fundamental of its utility and identity.
What’s one thing you wish the fashion industry would leave behind—and one thing it should embrace?
I wish we could leave behind social media, we are in a time where it is so systemized, everything is fed to us, there are metrics and paid sponsorships, although it has become a strong tool, it has made us passive consumers of experience rather than active participants in it. Everything online is accelerated and quickly forgotten. With thesis, it was such an opportunity to take my time with what I designed, it became something more meaningful and I could work intensively without having to force the product out.
Who or what has shaped your design values most?
Growing up in the South influenced my grassroots references into something elevated while still
preserving organic materials. Refining wooden elements through handwork and machinery.
Like the bag, which was a collaboration with Paul Howell, who is from Texas as well. Combining
my handwork construction and material experimentation with his industrial design background,
we merged handmade construction with CNC-cut precision to create a dialogue between craft
and industrial process.
If you could design for anyone in the world, who would it be—and why?
If I could design for anyone in the world, it would be someone whose image already aligns with me. Tilda Swinton is someone I have always admired. I grew up loving The Chronicles of Narnia, it has always been an inspiration that holds so much sentiment. She is outspoken for the environment, but private in her personal life.
Designing for her would feel like working within that in-between space of masculine and feminine, she often dresses a bit sculptural, but also real and understated. It never feels like she is wearing something for effect, it feels like it represents her spirit, not for for trends.
Three things keeping you sane right now
Craft and handwork has become so relaxing to me,
turning my notification silenced settings on,
and long phone calls with my mom and dad
One word to describe your design approach
Age
Where can we find you online?
Cameronclby on IG
Portfolio
