More Photos of Silhouette Study Garment

Silhouette Study Garment

My research topic is flora and fauna, and I always think each animal or plants represent a character or several. This dress is inspired by swan. Swan is noble and graceful, which make me associate with Queen. They has the similar characters, which both are elegance and holding a cold attitude standing at high status. To show those characters, I design the silhouette that is close-fitting to body to show the nature shape of female body, with high collar and shower curtain as material to show cold personality. 

The self-made texture was discovered by accident. Firstly, I want to iron the shower curtain to make it flat, but I heard somethings melting, then I saw this texture comes out. Two layers of curtain was melting and sticking together. I was amazed by it, and I think it can make the model more sexy, mystery and icy, which is also the feeling the Queen gives us. I may discover and apply some self-made texture on unconventional material in my final project.

Another very useful tech I learned is creating new pattern on basic pattern, and I will also use in my final project. It will be very helpful, because I can imagine the shape of my final garment will be bizarre according to my topic.

Silhouette Study Garment Sketches

 I searched the Disney movies and elves in both Chinese Legend and Western Story. I found animals have different characters. For example, snake-woman usually is evil and sexy, rabbit-woman is often kind-hearted. That reminds me a reading from seminar class. One section in "Light and Color in the Middle Ages" writes about symbolism of color -- every color itself means different property, such as white representing pure and red representing fire. Yellow is usually used to paint halo of the god. Same things happens on animals/plants. Many examples in Anthropomophism is based on symbolism of animals/plants. Artists and writes creates the character half with a specific animal/plant because the nature of that specific animal/plant. It sends to people indirect information. For instance, sloth gives people information of moving slow, so designers would not make the sloth moving so fast in animation.

                                                     

                                                                                                                     

      

(Peacock--Colorful, Passion)

Therefore, considering the character of different animals and the Silhouette of those animals, I designed following clothes. I chose basic dress pattern, because elves/fairies hardly wear pants. And I will use shower curtain as material, since this  material can make the clothes looks like more alien style and it is easy to handle. 

                                 (Snake--Smooth, Sexy)                       (Swan--Noble, Graceful)

                          (Anteater--Ponderous, Quiet)                      (Ring-necked Pheasant)

Pattern Collection Swatch Book

 

 

  

My pattern collection swatch-book was inspired from bat flowers, which is a typical example of exotic visual elements in nature, because of its dramatic shape. The shape and the color in dark purple create a sense of mystery and noble, which is associated in my mind with Maleficent, the dark witch in the story of Sleeping Beauty. Hence, I entitle the collection “Maleficent”.

The process of making a pattern collection is simple, but the process of creating a pattern collection is difficult. In Studio class, I practiced the basic illustration skills with geometries, created a asymmetrical motif and color palette, did the pattern construction worksheets included point groups, line groups and plane groups, step by step. Then the patterns just came out after all the procedures. However, the effect of patterns looks dirty or cute or normal, which is far away from my theme. To give them a mask of mystery, I added more intense color, such as murry, and deleted some neutral-valued color and pretty color, like pink. Besides changing color palette, another solution I did is remaking the single unit that is less regular and more surprising. Then I apply the some patterns on accessories and garments, which outlines are inspired from Maleficent.

Before print out the pages, there’s another step – arranging the order of pattern. Consider the reader, I arrange the pages in a way that is systematic, fluent and not boring, by putting two same-shaped pattern together and two similar-colored pattern together. Then, the following procedures are made by hands. First, I mounted the printed pages on illustration board. Next, a small hole is cut at the up-left corner of each page. Finally, a steel ring connects all pages.

The finished swatch-book shows major ideas of my research topic – visual elements of flora and fauna and anthropomorphism. As I wrote before, bat flower, the motif, has bizarre appearance, which looks like alien creatures. It will be outstanding if it is in the flower store. Riches want to buy it to show their poverty and power. People who cannot afford it still would like to talk about it. That’s because unusual and rear stuffs are always attractive for people.

Moreover, the association of Maleficent is kind of related to anthropomorphism. Maleficent can transform to dragon in the fairytale. She usually shows up with two horns, sometimes also with wings. The horns and wings reveal she can play magic, which make her stronger and more powerful than normal people. In other words, the horns and wings represent power now. People like to pursue power, so they want to own the symbol of power, like wings.