About Me:

My name is Ambar Beltran, and I recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. As a student at UVA Wise I majored in theater with a focus on costume design. There, I was given the opportunity to design and create costumes for at least ten productions including Top Girls by Caryl Churchill and Little Shop of Horrors by Howard Ashman. I also served as a costume shop manager and team leader at UVA Wise starting my Sophomore year. One of my many passions is fashion. I absolutely love the retro styles, so it is no surprise that I chose to explore the 1960’s for my Fashion and Identity project. I was especially drawn to the sixties because of the tremendous amount of change that occurred during the decade and changed everything about the United States.

Fashion and Identity Course and Project:

Fashion and Identity in Modern America is a COPLAC digital course that explores and analyzes fashions starting from the 1950’s to modern day, focusing on why people wore what they wore and what fashion choices say about an individual or a society. The course’s final project consist of an informative website that focuses in some way on each student’s local fashions. The project also requires archival information and a recorded oral history. I chose to explore the fashions of the 1960’s for my project because of the many national events and movements that surfaced and shaped the decade and it’s fashions. Particularly, my project first analyzes how war, politics, and the rights movements influenced trending fashions. My project also analyzes how trends compare and contrast to local or regional fashions in a small, conservative area within Appalachia.