Brenau University is hosting fashion design students and professors from two Chinese universities in the second phase of what the institutes hope will evolve into an ongoing collaborative learning program.

Lori Gann-Smith, director of the fashion design program at Brenau said the Chinese and American students will work on a design project that will be showcased in an informal reception from 1 to 2 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 14, at Brenau’s fashion lab located in the John S. Burd Center for the Performing Arts on the Gainesville campus.

“We also hope the work will get far enough along so we can produce some of the designs for inclusion in our spring fashion show,” Gann-Smith said.

The work is based on pieces from Brenau’s extensive collection of vintage clothing once owned by the late Lucy Jadot Shirazi, the founder of the World Wildlife Fund who by marriage was a member of the once royal family of Iran. The collection includes elegant, expensive, hand-tailored designer and bespoke clothing and accessories that were typical of wardrobes of wealthy, international “jet-setters” in the middle decades of the 20th century.

Some of the Princess Shirazi collection will be on display in the “Mid-Century Modern” exhibit of 1950s fashion, November 11 – Jan. 25 at Brenau’s Leo Castelli Gallery in the Burd Center.

“These clothes tell us a lot about the identities of women and their roles in society at this time in history,” said Gann-Smith, who is also curator of Brenau’s vintage clothing collections. “In addition to being bridges between the past and the present, they’re a gateway for new ideas in fashion, too.”

There is considerable appeal today for fashion eras of the past. For example, Brenau Academy alumni Katherine Jane Bryant, the Emmy Award-winning costume designer for the critically acclaimed television series, “Mad Men,” reported in a recent visit to her alma mater that the series, set in the Jackie Kennedy-Marilyn Monroe era, has revived modern interest in designs from the early 1960s.

The current Brenau-Chinese design project kicked off last spring when Gann-Smith and two fashion design students – Gabrielle Moss and Marie-Claire Willis– traveled to China for the first leg of the project at the collaborating universities. Qing Cao, a fashion design major and international student at Brenau who is a native of Zhongzhou, China, also traveled with the group inside China to act as translator and ambassador for her country.

Brenau’s Chinese visitors next week include Li Kejing, fashion design professor, and students Yang Xiaoyan and Li Xiangmel, of the Asian Pacific Institute at Zhongyuan University of Technology, and Dr. Xu YongBin, vice dean of art and design and Yao Zhao, a teacher of computer animation, in the College of Art & Design at Nanyang Normal University.

In addition to working on the project the professors also will visit other classes at Brenau, having conversations with other faculty about teaching methods and programs and visiting local sites of interest, including America’s Mart in Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium.

Gann-Smith said the project employs the Princess Shirazi collection “as inspiration for original designs and accessories,” rather than simply designer clothes to copy. The idea, she added, is to design apparel that would be appealing to women today that are based on the master craft displayed in the Shirazi collection.

The North Carolina-based clothing retailer, Cato, provided seed money for the project. Once designs are complete, Gann-Smith said Cato could elect to produce pieces as part of the brand lines sold in hundreds of Cato retail outlets in 32 states.