CHIC SQUAD FASHION CAMP
Chic Squad Fashion Camp, is a home-based day camp in its 10th year, running July 6 to July 17, 9am to 3pm, ages 8-14, in Demarest, NJ. Young designers learn an array of sewing and design skills, swim each day, take fabulous trips to thrift stores and NYC museums and shops and create their own designs for a public fashion show!
CHIC SQUAD TEEN INTENSIVE
Chic Squad Teen Intensive is a one-week pre-college arts boot camp where veteran campers and new designers (ages 15-18) will create an artistic portfolio and website that showcases their work for college applications. Read more about this special program here!
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Chic Squad designers learn to take materials previously considered useless and make it into something beautiful and wearable. If a child can envision the process of renewal through design, that child is free; free to create and design with little more than what the rest of the less imaginative world has thrown away.
Our squad operates on a strict code of love and respect, and welcomes all gender identities, backgrounds, and levels of ability.
REAL SKILLS, REAL FASHION
Designers are taught basic to intermediate sewing skills (depending on their level when camp starts), beginning to intermediate draping, beginning pattern-making, fashion drawing, up-cycling, textile making/weaving, bleaching/dying/distressing, applique and many other fabulous techniques through hands-on project based learning in a completely supportive environment.
A STUDIO FIT FOR DESIGN
We have a full studio set up with dress mannequins of all sizes, computerized sewing machines, ironing boards, sergers, glue gun stations and every sewing notion you could possibly need. Hundreds of fabrics spill onto the floor and line the walls. Our library of over 50 coffee table books of beautifully photographed fashions featuring work from all over the globe serves as reference for all our challenges.
OUR CAMP DIRECTOR
Victoria Pero is a costume and fashion designer, theatre director, and producer with credits on and off Broadway. She is the co-founder of upcycled fashion brand Stubborn Jeans and the 2015 recipient of the Japan-US Fulbright for Educational Sustainable Development.
In 2017, Victoria was approached by the Paterson Museum to design an installation of runway fashion composed entirely of off-cuts from local manufacturers. Victoria, BCA Fashion Design students and Chic Squad campers designed and created all the pieces for the six-month exhibit.
Victoria is a performing arts teacher and sustainability advisor at Bergen County Academies' nationally recognized Performing Arts Academy, where she was awarded Teacher of the Year in 2011.
READY TO ENROLL?
Due to the size of the studio and the teacher/camper ratio, only 18 campers may attend. The majority of my squad returns each year leaving only a few spots available. Please register below or
visit our Registration page for more details.
Check here for our policies on returning campers
and parents enrolling more than one camper.
