Person, Place, Thing – Fashion Illustration Croquis

 

Artist Statement:

More than just an expression of clothes, fashion illustration is a crucial aspect of the overall fashion design world. It is a way for artists to communicate fashion by expressing themselves and their perceptions of garments. Inspired by FIT Museum curator Valerie Steele’s conversation about her favorite person, place, and thing, I attempted to illustrate three of my own designs for each topic, and eventually create a fourth piece that incorporates elements from all three.

I chose Batman/Bruce Wayne as my favorite person for the first three illustrations. Despite being a fictional character, he embodies important values that I resonate with such as determination and fairness, and I have been impressed since childhood that the character is driven by a purpose to achieve his goals. I researched several high-end luxury menswear brands like Brunello Cucinelli, Ermenegildo Zegna, Pal Zileri, etc. to design the garments that would maintain his sophisticated gentleman look as billionaire Bruce Wayne. On the other hand, I decided to keep a sharp silhouette and a monochromatic overtone with black and grey and to give a hint of his alter ego as Batman.

The first choice for my favorite place was Changdeokgung, a historical site in Seoul as one of the “Five Grand Palaces” built during the Joseon Dynasty. Although heavily damaged and dilapidated over time, the East Palace maintains its colorful and grand appearance that also blends with the natural topography of the site rather than imposing itself over it. As a way to create a modern reinterpretation of traditional Korean styles to translate the building into clothes, I used its vivid colors and a symbol from the king’s garment. The other designs consist of collages from Korean paper that become parts of a patchwork coat and a loose pair of pants.

For my favorite thing, I decided the chessboard would be perfect because it has a sentimental value from my childhood when I used to play chess with my brother, and I thought it’d be an interesting challenge to translate such a static object into a moving garment. I utilized the black and white geometric pattern of the chessboard but tried to challenge myself to not be restricted by it and rather blend it in as part of the overall garment. Since the majority of the clothes’ surfaces generally sport a white background, it was important to decide the placements of the black squares that would visibly contrast and stand out.

Fortunately, I already had a general idea of how the combination of the three garments—one from each topic—would look like. I really adored the sharp appearance and the silhouette of the coat from the Batman illustrations, therefore I decided it to be a large part of the combination piece and keep the elements from other illustrations to minimal as slight edges. In order to maintain the overall black/grey tone, I integrated the royal blue Korean paper into the interior of the coat as a slight hint to Bruce Wayne’s aristocratic background and to the use of blue in some of Batman’s early depictions. Since the chessboard pattern is so prominent, I wanted to incorporate a minimum amount just to the shoulder so that it won’t take away all the attention but blends in with the rest of the black coat.

Considering that I’m not a fashion design major and possess less experience than others, creating designs and illustrating them proved to be quite difficult and time-consuming. However, it was interesting to find that my meticulousness and penchant for details help in unexpected ways like accurately piecing collages and depicting specific features. If I could do the project again in the future, I would like to push myself to try to think past initial first-dimensional ideas and further explore my imaginations.

 

Process:

Drawing the croquis models

Tracing onto 3 sheets of paper each for different subject

 

Person: Batman/Bruce Wayne

Sketches

Illustration

 

Place: Changdeokgung

Sketches

Illustration

 

Thing: Chessboard

Sketches

Illustration

Final Lineup