The final project is an open project. We were asked to select a topic that we are interested in, create a set of artwork and write a paper about it. I chose to examine the relationship of music and fashion. For my seminar paper, I focused on rock music and fashion. For my studio project, I designed a collection inspired by a series of composers and created one of them. I chose classical because I am really interested in classical music and found that there were not many fashion pieces inspired by classical (there were more inspired by rock and pop).

The outfits are inspired separately by the style of the composers.

1. This jumpsuit is inspired by Lizst. He was a very virtuoso composer and also probably the best pianist in his era. He was famous for astonishing performance and loved fancy outfits.  I used gold and black to demonstrate his flamboyant style, and added some metal rock elements because I think he was a “rock star” at his era. I also add the gold printed faces of “The Scream” by Edward Munch to show my emotions towards his music.

2.This dress is inspired by Debussy. He is a French composer famous for impressionist music. Many of his music has a flowing quality. He used a lot of chords instead of a straightforward melody line.The music is usually not organized in a traditional way but can bring the audience into a specific mood or scene. I used frost blue as the major color and incorporated many fluid decoration on the arms to show the quality of his music. Debussy’s music feels very light, soft and romantic to me. It reminds me of the crystal blue lake and the moist breeze in the summer.

3. This is inspired by Beethoven. Being the bridge of the Classical Era and the Romantic Era, he brought the classical music to a more expressive level by means of harmony, texture, etc. This outfit mimics fire, which is the most prominent thing I feel from his music. Many of his music feels extremely furious and energetic.

4. This one is inspired by Mozart. As a prodigy, his music came out naturally and he was never stuck with ideas. He used just the right amount of notes to elaborate the flawless melody. Although his life had been hard, he always made his music joyful and comforting. I chose red as the major color of the dress in order to demonstrate his passion and talent about music. I focused more on the silhouette and keep the color simple because Mozart’s composing techniques were relatively simple compared to latter composers. The silhouette represent his focus on melody and the relatively simple color represent his preference of pure, minimalist composing techniques.

5.This is inspired by Chopin. He is a composer in the Romantic era and is known as “Poet of Piano”. He added some sophistication to the classical music but overall his style was still pretty elegant and classic, so I used a classic cut of V – neckline. I also chose purple to elaborate this dress because purple demonstrated my feeling towards Chopin: poetic, intricate and a little bit sad.

I chose to construct the Liszt Dress after the first presentation. However, as an unexperienced sewer, I soon discovered that it was really difficult to sew the black velvet and chiffon together, and the chiffon is also too slippery and light to provide enough support to the metal chain. After several failed attempts, I decided to change my design. My new design featured the two cones on both sides of the dress and the strips. I maintained the black and gold color scheme and the “scream” motif. Because I felt black and gold are really suitable to describe his flamboyant composition skills, while the “scream” motif could demonstrate the audience reaction when they heard the virtuosic playing of Liszt. The cone shape showed his  sharp, edgy personality and was also associated with the rock star glamour. Because Liszt was the rock star of his time. The golden strips mimicked the keys of piano, as Liszt was most famous with his keyboard pieces.

In order to show the connection of the garment and music better, we did another set of shoots at Mannes School of Music. I was a bit worried that the wearer might not sit down with the cones at first, but luckily I found that Emily  could easily sit down with them. I would like to portray a musician of any kind playing with this dress to impress the audience visually.

Generally I think this project is really engaging. Thank you Aaron and Eric! I also learnt a lot from the amazing works from my classmates and the mistakes I made in my design. In the future, I should learn more about the qualities of different fabrics, consider more about the construction before creating the design, and combine my skills and imagination to create better design.