First Year Experience

I was born in Houston and at the age of seven I moved to a small town in Mexico, I grew up there since. It was a conservative and quite judgmental environment, in which being different wasn’t a thing. I grew up in a very creative and artistic family, having artist’s on both of my parents sides. My mother always supported and enforced the appreciation as well as the manifestation of creativeness in our daily lives.

Thanks to hear determination, I grew very fond and interested in making whatever my imagination thought of, helping me express what I felt.

I’ve always loved to dress up and try out new color combinations as well as textures. When I was in my early teens I noticed fashion appealed to me, so I started creating my own designs. One summer I went to SCAD in Savannah, Georgia, I took a Sumer course here. It was amazing. This course opened up my eyes, I met people from al over the world, shared cultures, ideas, and made unforgettable friendships. Besides meeting amazing people, I also had the opportunity to understand the fashion world, I was exposed to the machines and techniques that are used in the industry.

 

After this experience I knew I wanted to study fashion.

I applied to Parsons, and was accepted. I’m now finishing my freshman year and starting my sophomore year in Fashion Design.

 

I’ve noticed that my work has changed a lot. I feel that my work now is more concentrated on details and technique. I hope that next semester I can still focus on details and technique, but also be able to put my own voice in my projects. I know it’s not an easy task, however I’m determined to accomplish this. I liked that this year we learned to use and understand all the basics of art and design, because this way next year I’ll be able to know what are the requirements and then include my own ideas.

I learned to connect my ideas with my creations, or viceversa, being able to express what was my aim for each idea, was helpful for others as well as me to understand what I am trying to express, and writing my idea out allowed me to reassess it and see where I could improve it.

In my personal opinion the projects that were more exciting and stimulating for me, were the ones that were more open and allowed us to create what we imagined. I liked these projects because we had the freedom to talk about how we felt as well as have a hands on response to it, which covers both sides of a statement. I think that for further research a thing I could improve is to really narrow down my subject of interest, because this would allow me to have more focus and a better approach to what I want to express.

 

One of my favorite papers I wrote was last semester. I wrote about Elsa Schiaparelli and what interested me about her.

To write this paper I had to read a lot of books, journals, biographies as well as her own autobiography, which allowed me to see her from different perspectives and points of view. After reading, I started to highlight what interested me and what I wanted to talk about in my essay. I didn’t really plan out, I just went for it, started to understand what was going to be my response to my subject. I think maybe next time I should create a guideline that would allow me to be organized and on track.

Writing about Elsa was talking about her designs and distinctive sense of style. Being a female designer in times of war was not easy, but she managed to bring fashion back to life with her unique and colorful designs.

My thoughts while writing this essay were why didn’t she receive as much attention as Chanel, if Elsa’s designs were revolutionizing as well. I talked about her personal background that influenced her and pushed her into the fashion world. I included little facts that aren’t typically known about her.

 

 

One of my other favorite projects was our Studio project #3

I liked this project a lot because we had to create a garment out of something that was not usable anymore or had a complete different use. When Scherezade sent out the email, I was working at the Making Center (Fashion area), and we were throwing out all of the stained iron board covers. When I was throwing them out I was thinking how cool they looked, they looked organic and created interesting shapes. I read Scherezade’s email and knew that this was the opportunity to use these covers and create something out of it. I recollected them and cut them into different sizes and then kind of patch work, sewing them back together creating a new pattern.

 

After laying out the pieces of fabric I sewed them together. After sewing them. I placed my coat patterns and cut the pieces out. When I had all of my pieces to assemble my coat I started sewing everything together. It was a lot of work and it took my more than 15hrs to finish all the garment.

If I would go back and improve it, I’d make better finishes on the ends of the sleeves and collar, to give it finer appearance. It was challenging because I had to start from scratch, I had to basically create my own fabric, and then I had to figure out how to make a pattern, luckily one of my teacher’s lend me the pattern for the front and back of a coat, but then for the sleeves I was honestly just lucky, I wrapped fabric around my arms and winged it, thankfully it worked out and looked good.

My planning and outcome truly helped me get this project across, it gave me a sense of guidance and goals I was looking to achieve. Overall I really like the end result, I will use this because I think it’s fun and has an interesting story to it, and because of all the hard work it took to make it.

 

Conclusion:

In the future I want to plan out things better, to have a better sense of direction and goals that I want to achieve in each project. I want to ask more thought through questions, that take more reflection and depth for them to be understood. I’d also like to have my projects more linked one to another, have a string that ties them together, a theme. I’d like to keep on improving my skills and learning more, this way I can know all the possible ways I can create upcoming projects.