Theme: Politics of Body
Title: Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Design Proposal:
I am investigating why stereotypical gender roles still exist in Korea particularly for the elderly. I surmise that the biggest culprit of the stereotypical gender role is a Confucianism culture which is mainly patriarchal and deep rooted in Korea. I will create a garment which is primarily inspired by androgynous features and take a photoshoot of the garment worn by both genders. The implication is to harmonize both gender’s features and to take a neutral position. It ultimately aims to break our fixed notion about gender and to make people reconsider this issue of discrimination.
Mood Board
This is a mood board which shows the overall atmosphere of my project. The hues are vague and somehow mysterious. I focused on relationship between Korea’s cultural background and gender steretypes for the research paper, but I did not want the design project to look like Korean style. I wanted to approach in bigger frame and concentrated on the men and women’s equality which is a higher concept of the theme. I put the images that gave me an inspiration of vague and neutral feelings which helped me to convey the androgynous nature.
Material board/Fabric Board
These are the fabric swatches that I considered for the garment. I was looking for the neutral colors which will be fit for both genders. The texture that I considered was linen fabric which looks organic and generally associate with both genders.
Sketches
These are the prototype sketches that I rejected. I was aganizing from the deconstructive form to more soft structure. It was hard to be neutral, not being biased on one gender. I was thinking about the Han-bok,which is Korean traditional garment and also searched for the modernized ones.
I did the muslin prototype also but the final piece is not same as prototype. I had experienced to asked the tailor to make my design to sample not all by myself so it was very challenge for me to start. I tried in muslin first to check how I could sew and edjust the size or fits.
I had no shirts patterns but I had a coat pattern that I tore off from the coat. The coat patterns are bigger than the shirts so I just used the shapes and adjust the size by myself.
I chose the linen fabric for the final piece, which has natural ivory color and used the similar hue thread with the fabric and hand-sew it with needle.
I tack with the pins first than adjust the size and fit. By tacking, it was much easier for me to sew it because as I was hand sewn it, it was hard to maintain the identical interval between threads.
When I first sew the shoulder part which is a most important framework affected by the center of gravity, it was not strong enough due to my poor needlework. So I searched the internet and learned the Hemming stitch which helped me easier to connect the pieces tighter. Furthermore, I wanted to make the edges of the button line neat, so I strived to make the thread lines identical as possible.
This is a final piece in a dress form. I used size six dress form which was fit well for me. The big collars are general men’s shirts characteristic, but I made a waist line, so that exude feminine factors also. The shoulders are oversized, but I did not collapse the shoulder of dress form so that it looks fit in the photo.
I photoshoot a garment on myself. I styled as a Korean traditional clothing also. For the second image, I collaged with Margiela’s 1998 image and wanted to show the vague and mysterious feeling.
