Final Project Planning

 

Since I was more captivated and intrigued by the imposing forms adopted by the interior furniture of houses, which, I believe have a much greater potential of structural diversity than garments, as the latter are limited by the underlying structure of the body, I made this mood board, as part of my planning, whereby I wanted to combine features of houses and the human body. In particular, I wanted to add something geometrical and inorganic to something smooth and organic, this way bringing something, which originally belongs somewhere else, onto the human body in order to efficiently distort and dehumanize it.

Here I began to brainstorm forms and colors from designers who have inspired me, exhibitions I visited and google images.

I then sketched out the possible forms that my armor could take, collecting materials and trying to draw relationships between those and my concept.

Here I considered which materials I could use which would help me maximize the distortion of the body considering the time limit for the assignment. I also wanted the materials to appear lavish, scintillating, imposing and crystal-like when constructed around the body, to emphasize the idea of extreme Embelishment.

1. At first I wanted the body armor to be covered in pyramids made out of mirrored Plexiglas. I wanted the people who looked at the armor to see themselves and reflect onto their own identities. So here I am using the idea of façade as a metaphor for the body’s engagement with the surrounding world, whereby the façade becomes a device of concealment by means of reflecting others. And so by allowing others to perceive their own reflections on the garment, I hope to transmit a main questioning: Do façades delimit or facilitate expression or identity formation? Do they both conceal and reveal the depth of the “infrastructure” behind it? Do our bodies and facial expressions both reveal and conceal our feelings, intentions, and character?

My idea of using mirrored plexiglass was inspired my Alexander McQueen’s Voss Show.

In this show, McQueen forces the viewers to confront their own reflections onto a large reflective plexiglass box in the middle of the runway. This way, McQueen reduces the observers to observed “objects”, turning their scrutinizing gazes back to themselves in order to highlight how objectified the models have become in today’s society and how they are now used merely as decorative details added to enhance garments.

2. The base of the garment, onto which the plexiglass pyramids would be placed, would need to be black, as well as stiff and thick enough to be able to to sustain the heavier pyramids. Next to the sketches above, I fixed samples of materials, which I found interesting in how they might affect the distribution of the pyramids covering them, including neoprene and pleather. Although the pleather would have provided the base with the glossy surface I was looking for, it was too thin and would, thus, not allow the pyramids to smoothly follow the back of the mannequin. I, therefore, decided to use a 0.7 cm thick neoprene which would somewhat absorb the rigidity of the triangular shapes.

3. Considering the limited time frame given to us to work on this project, I had to find a material other than Plexiglas to work with, that would be easier to cut and sow onto the neoprene base, but that would achieve a similar effect to that of the Plexiglass in the mirroring of the surroundings.  When I visited a store on Canal Street, with the aim of finding a material thinner than plexiglass, I noticed a mirror coated, plastic adhesive sheet, which I immediately purchased. I hence decided that once I would complete the base of the armor, I would proceed by fixing this coating to illustration board, which is much softer than plexiglass, as well as simpler to pierce.

4. In relation to the form, which I projected for this garment, I wanted the neoprene base to mask the spine, the neck (from which it would open through the use of a zipper), the shoulders and the collarbones of the individual. However, the appearance of the completed project deviated slightly from my initial visual goal, even though it definitely met the overall desired effect of an unconventional, imposing and gleaming accessory. The reasons for which I made changes during the construction of the armor will be explored in the next post: Final Project Process Post.