Research:
Project Brainstorming (Political Issues in Nicaragua):
-
- Police Corruption
- Nepotism
- Control of information
- Poverty
- Class Divide
Garment Brainstorming Drawings:
The Drawstring Skirt:
Simple skirts with elastics on their waist are common between Latin and Central American cultures and typical dresses. This is the origin of drawstring skirts.
Examples of this include:
Bolivia’s Pollera
Colombia’s Pollera Colora
Nicaragua’s Huipil
Garment In Process:
Final:
Artist Statement:
To make fashion as a social statement did not seem challenging in the beginning. As the guidelines for the project started to go into place I thought about my country, Nicaragua. It has many social issues among these: police corruption, nepotism, control of information, poverty and class divide. The ones that struck me the most were poverty, because you can see it every day in the streets and class division because it is so grand. I wondered how I could make a garment that represented this. Furthermore, I thought what better garment to represent my country than its traditional skirt. In order to portray the contrast between class division and vast poverty I decided I would use half of the traditional skirt and half a news skirt. The new skirt is a pencil skirt made from a modern and metallic fabric. I think that many countries face these issues, especially within Latin and Central America. The skirt not only visually shows the contrast between the traditional and the modern, but also the high and low class. Moreover, I think the project was more personal because it also represents being in two cultures at the same time.