Subsequent to the David Bowie’s Exhibition, I found a garment that had caught my eyes. Personally, I can relate to the flower details stitched onto David Bowie’s garment. As a half Korean and Japanese, the name Yuri defines a “lily” in Japan, which is an important element of my identity. Growing from a non-English speaking country and trying to grow and learn more from different cultures and backgrounds, the flower blossoming on the garment gave a big inspiration for this upcoming Bridge project. I also wanted to signify the idea of flower and the significance of my name to let my personal own unique identity. Additionally, I am an introvert who doesn’t like to be the eye of the crowd. Therefore, I thought simple colors (black or white) of fabric can help support my introvert identity.
Some of the quotes from The Dressed Body book by Joanne Entwistle had reflected my identity as well as inspired the making of my garment. The quote, “The women I interviewed all spoke of two different bodies, one appropriate to work, the other to home.” reflect the two types of my identity as a half Korean and Japanese – that is, when I am with my family, I dress more conservatively to respect the Korean and Japanese conservative culture. However, most of my friends are from the states, which allows me to dress less conservative with jean shorts and short sleeves. Secondly, the quote, “Dress is the way in which individuals learn to live in their bodies and feel at home in them. Wearing the right clothes and looking our best, we feel at ease with our body, and the opposite is true also: turning up for a situation inappropriately dressed, we feel ill at ease in our bodies, out of place and vulnerable.” create a social force that allows people to be updated with the trend. Entering into Parsons School of Design, I have realized that people dress in high-end fashion clothes to classes every day. Through this, it has changed my perspective on how I style my clothes and the clothes I buy. It is a part of my identity that I moved on and changed from the items of clothing that I used to wear in my hometown, Korea, to the items of clothing I wear in New York. Lastly, the sentence, “For many people, is the experience of suddenly finding oneself naked in a public place.” depict the introverted identity of myself. I like to wear simple black and white clothes – that is, black and white doesn’t stand out as much as bright pink, purple, or orange. Thus, clothes help us cover our insecurities and make us feel safe to the public. To me, I realized that I own a lot of dark navy, black, or white clothes that help me to blend in and not be the eye of the crowd. All of the three quotes listed above involve a social space and to fit into the norm of keeping up with the trendy clothes and look our best to blend in with the people.
Process Photos
In the process of making my garment, I had first used the pattern template to separate my garment piece into three different patterns. The patterns helped me to adjust and change the sizes of my garment, whether it was too small or too big. Afterward, I had traced my pattern shapes to the fabric that I wanted to use for my garment. I, then, bought different colors of threads (navy blue and yellow) to represent the colors of my nationality. I used a mix of navy and yellow threads to design the flowers as well as the navy thread to connect the pieces of my garment together. The hardest part of making the garment was sewing the design of the flower onto the white fabric and sewing the flower to the garment. Because it was my second time using the sewing machine, my thread would often get caught by the sewing machine and I would disconnect the thread and restart with a new one. However, using the sewing machine a several times, I was able to get the hang of how the sewing machine worked. Despite the little threads coming out from seaming the ends of the garment, I am more than satisfied with the outcome of my garment.
Documentation
Subsequent to the MoMA exhibition, I have found several photos that were inspiring to me. However, I thought Untitled from the series Gesellschaft beginnt mit drei by Andrzej Steinbach stood out to me the most. Each image that was displayed on the wall unified one whole image. The photos felt like puzzles to match each photo to unify a complete image. Hence, the cropped photo strategy gave me a sense of my identity – that is, the two sides of my Japanese and Korean half. Additionally, I wanted to use a relaxed posture for my photoshoot to show how I have moved on from my innocent childhood. Likewise, the angle of the camera position is set below to show the strong and tough side of myself, however, the naive white garment showing the soft side of myself. Hence, the cropped images of myself symbolize the different sides and identity of myself.
Photos inspired by MoMA exhibition
Final Documentation
