For my silhouette study, I chose the first design in my swatch book. This is the piece I felt most confident in creating; some aspects of the other three may be more interesting, but I don’t want to try something too far out of my abilities. I found a plain sleeveless shirt to use as a pattern, and another shirt with large sleeves to combine with this pattern. I’m adding a dart to the pattern along the bottom, and I might add another one if the muslin doesn’t fit right on a figure. After tracing the shirt, I’ll also sliced off a few inches along the center seam and change the shape to match my sketch, which will make room for the 6 inner pieces I’m adding. This layering affect is similar to the layers on a monk’s robe, with much less material. I’m planning to use muslin and sew everything together, but I was thinking of using a stiffer linear material, maybe thin wire, to run along the neckline if the inner pieces aren’t stiff enough to cling to the chest, so these pieces do not fall forward. I plan to add an extra part to the sleeves, to relate them to my topic. The added square on the bottom of each sleeve is reminiscent of the traditional monastic robe worn by Buddhists for centuries.
One article I found during my research is about Korean artist Ki-hyang Lee, by Jacqueline Ruyak. It talks about Lee’s professional career, and how her love for fashion design was cemented when she went back to Korea after living in the United States for a decade. With her mother’s persuasion, she began to learn about Buddhism, which was her family’s religion, but which she had been estranged from for years. She became really passionate about Buddhism, and it soon came to define herself and her work. Her goal is to make Buddhism more appealing to outsiders, and to modernize traditional Buddhist images. I kept this in mind when creating my color palette, and sketching my designs. Lee feels grey is really important, and she often tones Korean colors like orange, and green with different shades of grey. I did this when I was making a color palette, which I used for my patterns. I found the article really interesting, and it helped guide me through this whole process.
