Space/Materiality:Culture
Bridge Project #2:Body Extension
Phase One
For my body extension project I have chosen to focus on 90’s culture. Below is my research paper for why I came to choose this culture for inspiration.
The 90’s Are Back! This isn’t just a slogan it’s the truth. As 2017 is slowly coming to an end I couldn’t help but look back and notice that this years fashion has decided to backtrack and bring back old trends. From loose high waisted jeans and flannel prints to baggy sweaters and comfy bomber jackets all of these ready to wear clothes are making a comeback and a lot of people really love it, myself included.
The reason I choose 90’s culture is because I was raised in it. Through the years it’s obviously faded now that it’s coming back and it’s influencing our choice of style and design. For me 90’s was a mixed in with my parent’s foreign background. That meant walking around in hot pink funky shirts and cheetah print jackets long after they went out of style. Although I spent my younger years in 90’s culture I don’t remember that much and looking for inspiration was definitely a challenge. Since fashion left a big impact on me I decided to narrow down my search and focus on 90’s couture.
90’s couture is where my ideas started to really develop and take shape. I noticed that many top fashion companies and designers had the same ideas. Long puffy and styled dresses with elegant drapes were popular and they were always paired with patterns and extensive details. When I moved away from the runway, the daily wear of people was very similar. Like most dresses regular clothes were baggy and comfortable. These types of clothes caught the name of ‘grunge’. However most designs carried patterns as well. There were stripes, zig-zags, checkered tiles and colors that popped on the material.
When I started to look into 90’s patterns I began to find the types of designs many producers and companies used for TV shows. I noticed that Geometric shapes were also a major pattern of the 90’s. Triangles, squares, pentagons, circles, etc. would appear in commercials, logos and announcements to make advertisements look fun and exciting. I decided to take these patterns and include them in my body extension design along with the idea of large baggy jackets and long hanging belts. After careful research I decided that these three aspects of 90’s couture connect with me the most and would probably connect with my audience the best as well. My hope is to be able to clearly express these 90’s culture artifacts as best as I can into my body extension. At the same time I think the patterns that I’ve found will work well to create an abstract, volumes and interesting extension.
Mood board:
Design Concepts:
1.Using Illustrator to create a template of geometric shapes.
2.Instead of hand cutting, the laser cutter.
3.Materials options; chipboard or metal sheets, connecting through wire or yarn, belt from chains: heavy chain or wire made chain.
Thumbnail Process:
Sketch:
Phase Two
Out of the three designs I did for Phase One I choose the one with the details I liked the most. For the 90’s couture culture that I am focusing on I decided that I wanted to make my own abstract version of a bomber jacket. Seeing as the 90’s was full of geometric shapes my plan is to make that the main focus of the design that identifies it to be from the era I’m basing it off of. The material I plan to use is Acrylic so cardboard and paper were a perfect material to use to create quick mock-up parts of my design. The belt on the abstract design is supposed to be made out of large thick wire which I hope gives the metallic sound that chains make. I had a good time planning my mock-ups and getting all the pieces together.
Best Design:
3D Sketches:
Mock ups:
After mockup:
After completing my mock-ups I realized that I wasn’t so confident in my design. Therefore after sitting down with my Professor I considered changing my materials and form. After a few hours of sketching and going into complete detail this is the design that I had come up with. I then used extra time in the making center to create an outline of the new jacket design and then a complete mock-up of it out of cardboard as well.
Phase Three
Process:
Orthographic Projection
Laser Lab & Wood Shop
Wood Wax
Connecting
On Model
Styling Photos
Design/Art Statement
While many kids grew up to the 21st century I grew up surrounded by the 90’s. Fashion and technology left the biggest imprint in my memory part of the reason being that my parents would dress me in bootcut jeans and funny cheetah print jackets. I choose 90’s culture to focus on for this body extension because not only is 90’s fashion is making a comeback but so is a little bit of it’s technology. Among teens and young adults right now in 2017 you might catch either the familiar grunge look or a polaroid hung around someone’s neck.
When I was creating my body extension I decided that I wanted to make something that was abstract but at the same time was able to represent and show 90’s culture visually. After collecting research about 90’s couture I decided that I wanted to base my body extension off of an abstract bomber jacket. To create it I choose shapes of different sizes to represent the popular geometric patterns that were a big part of fashion and even in tv design. After some experimentation I came up with a final figure but to really show 90’s culture in the body extension I decided to search up the most popular and eye catching symbols that the 90’s had created. These symbols I engraved onto the plywood material of my piece. I hope that the final result of the project conveys the 90’s culture to people through its shape and design.
