THE FINAL PROJECT PHOTOS: 

 

 

PROCESS:

Original garment 

Silk top that was purchased from a vintage shop called ‘Beacon’s Closet’.

Deconstructed 

After, I have deconstructed the original garment into different parts.

Pattern Making 

Traced the original garment’s parts on a tracing paper with seam measurements and labelled the different parts.

Process of Re-construction

Sewing the parts together base on my design and I have used some original silk garment parts in my redesign as well. Also, I added two more new materials—organza and red string.

 

REFLECTION :

The original form of my garment was bought from the vintage shop beside The New School called ‘Beacon’s Closet’. It was a top and it looks like a silk sleepwear style t-shirt. The shirt included some Asian culture’s characteristic, for example the letter and the vest part design. After, I have redesign the clothing piece to a more formal look and added different details to it. The shirt still maintains as a shirt, but I added another sheer layer to it and have change parts to make it more complex.

Moreover, the function still remains the same, but it is more formal and more designs on the shirt. I have change the vest part to a more modern diverse vest, original it was a Tang dynasty/ kimono style vest, but I changed the vest from overlaying each other to a more modern V-neck vest. However, I sewed some fabric towards the middle to create a drip form, so it still has some of my culture’s identities. I redesigned the back too, where I cut an hole to show the backline of the person’s back, Also, the red string attached on the top and hangs down is a another design which reinforce the backline. I chose to cut the hole as a circle because in traditional Chinese culture, windows are round back in the days. Likewise, the choice of colors red and black provides strong visual contrast of the colors, which makes the red pop out a lot.

Furthermore, I kept some parts from the original clothing, which is made from silk. Then I used materials such as organza and silk red string. The addition materials cost me 30 dollars and the original clothing was 34.95 dollars. The total time it took me to make this clothing piece was 10 hours, because of taking the clothing apart, sampling, redesigning and making the details that I added and how complex the use of organza was. Especially, sampling and pattern making took  up a long time, but it is helpful to have, so you can known and decide which part you want to change and cut your material in the same size of the pattern. Additionally, going to the FIT exhibition to do some research where I got inspired by the cultural identities, so I adapted features from my culture and the layering technique of different fashion clothing, which I have also added another sheer layer to the clothing to make it look intense.

As conclusion, in this project I have learned to combine different materials and how different materials collaborated with each other. The most enjoyable part was to design the item into your owns; I enjoy redesigning and making the actual item exist. On the other hand, the most challenging part for me was to measure to create patterns. I don’t think it is too hard, but it takes up a lot of time and can be frustrating sometimes. In the end, I am glad and most satisfy that what I have redesigned can be made and it turn out as I wanted to. I learned about how I altered the design and also how I work with the fabric materials; also learned how I develop my design as well.