For part of our weaving lessons in Textiles, we worked with a backstrap loom. Not only did we learn to weave on one, but we built the looms ourselves.
Monthly Archives: December 2014
Smart Textiles
For our final project in Textiles, we got to learn about and work with smart textiles. Using conductive thread, we embroidered it on to muslin and attached LEDs and a small watch battery.
Color Test
This is a color test I did in Textiles while we were exploring Color Theory and the way colors work together.
Creative Technical Studio: The Dress
For our final project, our teacher challenged us to be more conceptual, and to stop thinking so much about the form of the body. For this, I was inspired by clouds. I thought about how when people are looking up at them, they see different shapes. One may look like a cat or a baby, or a cake. Really, the clouds are just big blobs, not looking like anything, but people see what they want in them. I wanted to make a dress that people could see in it what they wanted to, and transform it to wear how they wanted to. I did this by incorporation drawstrings, two in the front and one in the back, so that the dress can be worn in at least ten different ways.
Creative Technical Studio: The Shirt
We started our shirt project by deconstructing a men’s button down shirt. From this, I took my initial inspiration, which was a cape-like back made up of two layers.
From there, I thought more about shirts, and started researching the traditional Hawaiian shirt. Through this research, I learned about the amazing things Hawaiians have made through traditional feather working, such as leis and this cape, which belonged to a king:
In the end, this was my finished product:
Creative Technical Studio: The Skirt
For my skirt, I was inspired by marble and all of its qualities; the colors, the way it is created in nature, its texture and malleability. I considered all of these as I draped, chose fabric, and produced the final piece.
LBD + Immaculate Conception
For our final project in Design Studio, “Fashion Anthropology and Directive Spontaneity,” we were randomly assigned a historical garment to research. I was assigned the little black dress, which surprisingly for me, was not so straight forward. Through my studies, I realized than any dress that is black can be considered an LBD. So when we had to make a mock-up of some sort of our garment’s most characteristic part, I was a little stumped. In the end, I decided to recreate the front bodice of Audrey Hepburn’s classic Givenchy dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, because to me, that is the little black dress.
To go along with our historical garment, we were also assigned a random action word. With this word, combined with our garment, were were supposed to design a collection. My word was birth. Yes, birth. So after some thought, I started focusing on Immaculate Conception and the birth of the Virgin Mary, which seemed like a fitting contradiction to the mischievous LBD.
For my fabric manipulations, I used motifs from the depictions of Immaculate Conception. The Virgin Mary often has a halo of stars or is standing above thorns, so I laser cut both from fabric. I also used bleach to take the color out of black fabric.
To me, it was like bad vs. good. Born free from original sin vs. the sin that the color black represents. This idea remained strong as I designed my collection, and I incorporated the idea of that struggle as well as my fabric manipulations into each of the looks.
Visual Communications 1: Final
Our final was very free, just six looks with corresponding front and back flats, plus fabric swatches. Instead of focusing on my designs, I put all of my efforts into the drawing and rendering. For the looks, I just created ones that have a close resemblance to clothing I had when I was young that I would now love to have in my closet.
Visual Communications: Progression
For our third project for Visual Communications 1, we had to create our own striped, plaid, and patterned fabrics using Illustrator or Photoshop. We then had to incorporate them into 4 different looks with corresponding front and back flats.
Visual Communications 1: Beginning
Over the course of Visual Communications 1, I learned a lot and improved a great deal. These are my first two projects, just dealing with fashion proportions and beginning flats.
