Lashun Costor
Advanced Research Seminar
Alison Kowalski
January 31, 2017
About
Born and raised in Georgetown Guyana by my grandmother. As a child growing up I always wanted to know my parents. Looking back at my childhood I respect their decision for moving to America and setting the foundation we as a family needed for a better life. In 2002 I was finally reunited with them in New york City.Having to adapt and learn how to conform to my new life was challenging but fulfilling at the same time. Getting the opportunity to go to school, learning how to read and write was something I never thought I was going to do. But knowing that I’m the first persons to go to college in my family is a blessing and a curse at the same time. As a woman of color, I live in a country where I’m condemned to a life of hardship and fewer opportunities. I’ve had to understand and come to terms with the history of my people and how much we have grown but still struggle with the past and the effects its has on us as women. Being the first is a hard burden to bear there is no other choose but to be successful because everyone is counting on you and only you. To ensure my success I decided at a young age that I wanted to become a costume designer. In order to prepare myself and perfect my skills, I’m currently a fashion design major in my junior year attending Parsons School of Design.
Fashion allows us to embody our deepest desires, embrace our true identities, feed our self-consciousness while society sits back and indulges in the economic success. The language of fashion does not only affect how we think but also how we feel, it accounts for the ways mass culture is transformed into personal experiences. Fashion helps us articulate who we are as individuals, while also creating versions of who we want to be. Yet it’s so easy for people to dismiss the effects fashion has on the human mind. I wanted my work to be more than just the next best trend but more of a political statement. Clothes are our personal system of visual communication. We can categorize and summarize it into two aspects, commercialism and conceptuality, how can one make or retain the wearable while still using it to deliver a political message. I want my audience to receive and reciprocate a message. Since the aesthetic of politics in fashion is not only limited to clothes, it can be shaped in the form of art, cultural science, sociology, etc. Designers like myself communicate through their clothes, as a beautiful work of art, a way to convey our deepest concerns, by trying to make our thoughts be heard regularly in our work.
Knowing who I am and my ancestral background is an important aspect of my work. Getting to experience two different cultures as a child and now a woman, It allows me to share and educate the masses about the struggles and oppression of my people. While also sharing my personal experiences, so others can feel the raw emotions of my pain and triumph. As an artist, my journey started when I moved from South America (Guyana) to the United State. I knew that moving to a new country wasn’t going to be easy, I had to find myself again. Being a kid from a different country I was seen as an outcast in school. But by educating myself in history and understanding the fact that I have to start loving myself in order to find me. I started to explore more in art, fashion, color and culture. By opening myself up to see the real me I wanted to do the same for others. So for the past six years, I’ve decided to mix art, fashion, social and historical issues to create one of a kind wearable sculptures that provokes thought and boggles the mind. I want people to not only question the piece but do they’re own research and come to their own conclusion.
My work opens the minds of others by bringing back an era through clothing and storytelling. To create such an environment for my audience I always start with understanding the issues of what’s happening in the world today. Then picking an event in history that correlates with what’s happening right now. Because I’m a firm believer that history always repeats itself. I want my work to make people think twice about the context of the issue that I’m working on. The creative process starts off with lots of research and sometimes interviews on current events. After collecting the data then I move on to the drawing board stage where I sketch everything out and finalize my storyline. Next is construction where I drape, pattern make, sew, and make an art piece to go along with the garment to make everything come together as one. I just want to have a career that I love and enjoy. I hope to achieve what others in my family wasn’t given the opportunity to achieve. To be able to give them that would be the first step to accomplishing my goals.