Ryan Jude Novelline

In 2008 Novelline was commissioned, among other RISD students and faculty, by GAP creative director Patrick Robinson to create one-of-a-kind cardigans that would be sold out of GAP's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York.[11] In 2011 Novelline created designs that were shown at Harvard University's fashion show, Eleganza. One of his dresses, an aquamarine and topaz Swarovski crystal-embellished gown, was made from repurposed hotel curtains and modeled by Sonia Dara.[12][13]

During an elective college course in RISD's fashion department in 2010, Novelline created a garment from recycled materials. He acquired hundreds of recycled and discarded Little Golden Books from the Salvation Army and eBay[14] to construct a dress comprised entirely of the illustrations from the books sewn together with metallic gold thread, and a bodice was made from the books' foil spines.[15][16][17][18] Tommy Hilfiger called the piece "amazing".[19] The work of contemporary art, titled The Golden Book Gown, received widespread attention for its design and innovative use of material.[1] According to Italian Glamour, the piece "lascia tutti a bocca aperta" or "left everyone in awe."[20] Publishers Weekly said that the dress "proves that green fashion can provide as rich a fantasia as can be imagined."[9] The gown was voted the "most creative" fashion design of 2011 by Ecouterre.[21]

In 2014, Novelline made a dress from the pages of recycled graphic novels for Maisie Williams that she wore as a guest judge for Bookbarn International's Out of Print Fashion Show.[22][23] She wore the dress a second time at the Entertainment Weekly party at San Diego Comic Con. The dress, called ZAM!, included pages from X-Men, Sandman, Sailor Moon, and Game of Thrones.[24] According to The Huffington Post, the paper dress was "the coolest thing at Comic Con"[25] and later named among Williams’ "Best Looks" by Vogue.[26]

Novelline collaborated on the children's book Piccadilly and the Fairy Polka contributing as the art director and illustrator of the book casing and dust jacket.[5] In 2015, he created a series of illustrations of Tyler Oakley as Disney Princesses that were featured on Oakley's Tumblr.[27] Influenced by a long-standing interest in fashion dolls,[6] he has made paper dolls[10] and art dolls wearing his own designs.[5] In recognition of the Supreme Court's decision to recognize marriage equality in all 50 states, he created a commemorative art doll from an upcycled Barbie. The doll wore a rainbow gown and carried an American pride flag in one hand and a marriage license dated June 26, 2015, in the other.[28]

Based on the fairy-tale Undine, Novelline showed a gown called Beyond Blue as cosplay during New York Comic-Con in 2017. The hemp-silk gown weighed over 50 pounds, had a 13-foot cathedral train, and featured over 20,000 hand-placed, Swarovski crystals. The fabric print featured a round composition of mermaids taken from one of the artist's original paintings. The blue gown was listed among the years "Best Cosplay" and compared to Elsa’s design from Frozen.[29][30][31][32][33] In 2019, he returned to New York Comic-Con with a gown based on the story of Sleeping Beauty called The Good Fairy. According to him, the look "celebrate[d] not just the final character, but the process of creating one.“ The design was also listed among the year's “Best Cosplay".[34][35][36]

Dutch influencer Rose Nora Anna danced to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl in a TikTok wearing a replica dress by Novelline of Princess Diana's blue Catherine Walker gown originally worn to the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[3][4][37][38] TikTok's Queen Astraea also ran through New York City in one of his dresses.[39][40]