Most of us think of art as something done on canvas. On Friday, April 20 Monica Gibson Constancio, in her own way, used children’s wear as her canvass to debut a beautiful line full of artistic creations with vibrant colors.

“Kidz Art for Kids Clothes” was held at Creative Vera Studio located at 1200 S Street. FUSE Apparel and Possibility Publishing & Entertainment (T2PS) presented the event attended by guests of all ages creating a fun family atmosphere. Most of the children appeared to be less than 10 years old and had energy to burn.

Future artists at work (Image by: David Alvarez)

Several art stations were set up at the studio and children worked on their own to create their masterpieces. Artist Raphael Delgado helped children with their work and offered tips and techniques that helped children create an art piece.

Raphael Delgado teaching young artis (Image by: David Alvarez)

Delgado’s work and efforts in the Sacramento community are well documented and during the event an observer could easily see the dedication he has for children and their artistic growth as he patiently and enthusiastically worked with them.

Constancio’s designs were inspired by art children created and posted to the event site on Facebook. The collaboration project was the end result of an internship Constancio completed. The 10-week internship followed the complete process from its conception, planning, creation and implementation of the design line.

Más Bonita designs (Image by: David Alvarez)

Several other outfits besides the ones modeled were auctioned off during the event. Proceeds from the event will go to pay for the material costs to create the line as well as to the designer and the Crayons for Kids Supply Program for Stanford Home for Children.

FUSE Apparel was created by Tracy Saville and T2PS. The line was envisioned to pair local emerging designers with real artistic inspiration created by children. This paring gives designers the opportunity and experience in designing and delivering a line which can provide some economic return for the designer and proceeds to help fund children’s art.

Saville has become an influential voice for art and artists in the Sacramento community. Her work and vision continues to grow and the “Kidz Art for Kidz Clothes” event allowed her to work with Constancio who was for a time a student of Saville while both were at the International Academy of Design & Technology (IADT).

Tracy Saville welcomes guest (Image by: David Alvarez)

Just before the actual showing of the Ada Más Bonita line began Saville welcomed guests saying, “Welcome to Creative Vera Studios which is the artistic place of Raphael Delgado. He is one of the most interesting and prolific artists I’ve ever met.”

Saville continued her introduction saying, “About six months ago we were talking about the idea of what it would take to create kids clothes that were inspired by children’s art and also help buy children’s art supplies as a way of creating a relationship between fashion design, art and commerce. At the same time I thought about how fortunate I was to have worked at IADT as an English instructor for it was there that I met Monica Gibson Constancio who is your designer for this evening.”

“I love the idea of doing something that supports children and invests in helping the artist. All these children here tonight in fact are what you’re investing on. The Sacramento community is nothing but a blank canvas thank you for being here to support Monica,” said Saville.

Constancio who admitted being nervous thanked guests and said, “I want to thank everyone for coming out here tonight to support this project. I’m a fashion designing student at IADT. I started three years ago and designing has always been a passion of mine since I was a little kid.”

Monica Gibson Constancio (Image by: David Alvarez)

Constancio talked about her internship saying, “I learned a lot from this project and I’m glad I had the opportunity to work with T2 Solutions. I want to thank Tracy for having this project with kids’ art and fashion. It was a good opportunity to combine the two aspects and I had fun picking out different kinds of fabrics to design with. I’ve cherished the opportunity to work with Tracy, Raphael, the kids and their parents.”

The rambunctious crowd quieted down and the kid fashion show followed. The once lively little models turned shy and parents ended walking down with some of them. The Ada by Más Bonita line made its triumphant debut. Supporters on hand cheered and clapped loudly in support.

Young model walking the runway (Image by: David Alvarez)

After the fashion exhibit Constancio noted that she became involved in the 10 week internship after talking to Saville. Constancio stated, “Tracy used to be a teacher of mine and one day I was just going to see her to talk about what direction I wanted to go in my career because she was my mentor and she said something like ‘Oh, I’m going to be coming up with a project that you might be interested in’ and I said sure and so she told me about a great opportunity in designing children’s clothing through art work.”

Constancio also shared how she came up with the name Más Bonita saying, “I was inspired by beautiful colors and my brand name is Más Bonita. The way I came about the name was simply because my name starts with M, my daughter’s name starts with A and my son’s name starts with an S and I combined it with Bonita (Spanish for pretty). I always want people to feel beautiful while wearing my designs.”

Model and their parents (Image by: David Alvarez)

Saville shared some insight about her collaboration with Constancio.  When asked how she came up with this project Saville said, “I have a line called FUSE Apparel and the idea of it is to pair artists with local emerging designers and in this case the children’s art inspired the designs. In adult clothing lines the art itself will be imbedded into the fabric. The project allows for both and I can experiment doing something like this as a beginning project and also help mentor someone which is important to me and really it’s doing something for the community as well.”

The 10 week internship also allowed Constancio to satisfy her internship graduation requirement at IADT.

Monica Constancio, Tracy Saville and Raphael Delgado (Image by: David Alvarez)

The collaboration of art, fashion and community created a great partnership for the event. The innovated vision created by Saville, Delgado and Constancio was well received and worked well to showcase a triumphant debut for Ada by Más Bonita. With the support of community and business partnerships the event could fuel similar collaborations in Sacramento.