Tour of california

California's history is unique. It has been shaped, in part, by its geography. California has four main regions. The temperate coastal region, the Central Valley, once an inland sea, the desert, and the mountain region. The imposing Sierra Nevadas caused California to develop in relative isolation from the rest of the nation. After Americans began to settle in California in large numbers during the nineteenth century, it would usually be weeks before news would arrive from the East.

The name "California" came from a knightly romance book that was published in 1510. It was about an island paradise near the Indies where beautiful Queen Califia ruled over a country of beautiful black Amazons with lots of pearls and gold. Men were only allowed there one day a year to help perpetuate the race. Cortez's men thought they found the island in 1535, because they found pearls. Later, Francisco de Ulloa found that the island was really a peninsula.

The first settlers to arrive in California after the Native Americans were Spanish, and later Mexican. Russia had some small settlements for the purpose of whaling and fur trapping in Northern California, but Russia didn't attempt to colonize the area except in very isolated areas. Spanish priests were sent to California to covert the Indians to Christianity. Spain hoped to make the California native population into good Spaniards, loyal to Spain. Spain was becoming alarmed that the Russians and English were encroaching on lands claimed by Spain.

The fight for California began almost 500 years ago with Queen Elizabeth I. She sent Sir Francis Drake to harass and raid the Spanish galleons. England was beginning to realize the value of California. England did not want Spain claiming more land in the new world, upsetting the balance of power between the super powers of the time. Tensions were already high between Spain and England. Henry VIII, Elizabeth's father, had divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess. In order to accomplish the divorce, England severed ties with Catholicism and Henry had instituted protestantism as the State religion. Henry and Jane Seymore's son had assumed the throne after Henry's death and continued Henry's policies. But when Edward VI died at the age of 16, Mary I came to the throne after Lady Jane Grey ruled for a brief 9 days. Mary was the daughter of Henry and his first wife, Catherine. Her ties to both Spain and Catholicism were strong. Elizabeth was suspected of plotting to overthrow Mary and was imprisoned in the Tower. After "bloody Mary" died and Elizabeth I became monarch, the power struggle between catholics and protestants did not end. Eventually, Elizabeth had Mary, Queen of Scots, executed for treason. Mary was her greatest threat to the throne since Mary claimed it as her right by way of England's ties with the French throne. Even though Mary had abdicated her rights, she still remained a threat to Elizabeth since Spain and France could use Mary as a cause to move against England. With the death of Mary Queen of Scots, England had secured protestantism and Elizabeth's reign, but was short on allies. In order to build new European allies, England had to remain a power to be reckoned with. Spanish settlement along the west coast of North America could bolster Spanish power. This was the last thing England wanted.

California offered a lot to the nation. The rich Central Valley eventually became known as the breadbasket of the world. California's mild climate allowed for year-round farming and fruits and vegetables could be grown in California that would grow in very few other places. The Chinese eventually prospered, despite extreme prejudice and jealousy over their success, by growing fruits and vegetables, which were an important part of their diet. The Chinese eventually started their own town in the Central Valley which remains to this day. The town has some descendants of these original Chinese immigrants.

Eventually, the railroads carried California produce to the East. California's exotic produce was in great demand in the East. Ice cars, the precursors to the refrigerated cars of today, began in response to the demand for California produce. Agriculture was responsible for generating great wealth in the state. Agriculture is still a major industry today.

California had become part of the life of the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century--an exotic land of untold promise on the distant Pacific Coast. At the beginning of the twentieth century, California seemed less exotic, and the land's promises seemed more limited. And these developments resulted from many factors other than the end of the rush for gold and easy mineral wealth.

Much of California's mystery arose from the state's geographical position, a region facing squarely west across the Pacific, with its mountainous "back" turned to the rest of the nation. By 1900, American settlement had filled in the pockets of unmapped land in the Far West. Washington State and Oregon were admitted to the Union, and the Pacific Coast was occupied by three states running south from Canada to Mexico. While a few territories remained to be organized into full-fledged states, the United States could now be truly said to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And Alaska, far to the North on the Pacific Coast, had replaced California as a mysterious frontier land with riches of gold.

Further, the Pacific and the lands west of California were becoming more fully a part of the life of the United States. Trade to Japan and China had been opened in the second half of the nineteenth century. Chinese immigrants and their descendants, once confined entirely to California, were slowly beginning to create "Chinatowns" in cities further east.

Even more important, the United States was assuming responsibility for the government of more and more Asian peoples across that Pacific. The Spanish American War of 1898 left the United States as the custodian of the Philippine Islands. And in 1900, Hawaii, whose population included native tribes and descendants of immigrants from many Asian nations, became the United States' last organized territory. The increased importance of Asia and Asian affairs for the United States was recognized when President Theodore Roosevelt played a key role in mediating the end of a war between Russia and Japan in 1905.

If California had lost much its special nature as America's outpost on the Pacific, the new century also reminded observers around the world that California could no longer be regarded as an uncomplicated paradise of easy living. This lesson was brought home with terrible force on the morning of April 18, 1906, when an earthquake shook the proud city of San Francisco for two full minutes. The quake and the fires that followed for three days left 500 San Franciscans dead and destroyed more than 28,000 buildings--more than a third of the homes, offices, and stores in the entire city.

Although damage was greatest in San Francisco, its effects were felt in every city from San Juan Bautista to the coast at Mendocino. San Francisco would be rebuilt, and Californians would learn to construct homes and stores that could better withstand future disasters. But no one could afford to forget what had happened that week in April, and no one could pretend that California's bountiful natural resources somehow made the state or its residents immune to nature's equally generous capacity to destroy.

Educating Thinking Designers for Fashion’s Future

CCA’s Fashion Design students are trained to be the innovators of tomorrow. Our alumni are praised for excelling in their discipline and applying their talents in a wide variety of capacities from large and small design houses to artisan cooperatives in the United States and abroad.

Our innovative program weaves time-honored skills of fashion practice (draping, pattern cutting, sewing, knitting, and illustration) with a comprehensive approach to sustainability, conceptual fashion design, and interdisciplinary thinking. The program fosters creativity, curiosity, and innovation, as expressed in the individual senior thesis collections.

Fashion Design Resources

• The Boyce Fashion Design Studio on the San Francisco campus is fully equipped for developing the craft of fashion—from draping and patternmaking to sewing and knitting.

• The New Materials Resource Center offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary collection of resources with an emphasis on sustainability and alternative materials.

• The San Francisco campus is also home to a state-of-the-art rapid prototyping facility that provides seam-welding machinery and kick presses to help actualize garments for the future.

  Industry Leaders on a Global Scale

  Internships and graduate career opportunities are readily available on the local, national, and international fashion stage. In addition to joining some of America’s most-recognized fashion firms—Ralph Lauren, Narciso Rodriguez, Thom Browne, Isabel Toledo, DKNY, Jones of NY, J.Crew, Abercrombie & Fitch, Levis, Gap, Mountain Hardwear, The North Face, Athleta, Tea Collection, and Gymboree—Fashion Designalumni have successfully founded their own companies, set up programs to aid artisans, and applied design innovation to transform industrial waste into a valuable resource (Pratibha Syntex, Global Action Through Fashion).

  Awards & Accolades

  CCA’s Fashion Design Program is one of just 15 schools in the United States to participate and place in the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) Scholarship competitions. Our students compete and place in prestigious competitions worldwide, including the Fashioning the Future competition in the United Kingdom, Metropolis magazine’s Next Generation competition, and New Zealand’s World of Wearable Art.

  Please join program chair Amy Williams and the Fashion Design faculty in following your dreams to become one of tomorrow’s inspired designers who will ignite global change in the fashion industry.