Fashion #1

My inquiry question for the whole sustained investigation is how can fashion be a tool in fighting for human rights, then my specific inquiry for this project was how are gender norms expressed through fashion, and in this project I was thinking about how I could mix, or break those norms. I used the typically boxy and long traditional look of a mens clothing item and put it onto a traditional piece of clothing known to men, a suite. I exaggerated a lot of the masculine features such as the long coat, and the square shape, as well as the boxy shoulders and thick coller. I tried hard to make the suit top not look feminine in any way. Then I used the same idea for the pants on the first subject, I used a typical male waist rise on the pants rather than a more high rise style you would find in a womens suit. I made sure there was no taper to the leg so as to keep the more square shape. For the more femine objects, I exaggerated the curved to an extreme. Feminine clothing often is made to fit a thin body, and made to show the curves of hips, and waite. I tried to show that in a strong way while also incorporating some traditional fashion trend of the earlier ages such as puffed sleeves and a corset like top. 

I used collage for this project. When sewing and making clothing, you would use many cuttings of faberich arranged and sewed together to make something beautiful. I tried to imitate that process except with paper cutouts. I used them as if the were fabric then glued them onto the paper to portray my design. I also thought that using cutouts from magazines such as rolling stone and people connected directly to fashion because most of the cutouts were of fashion on icons themselves. I was using images of influential styles to make my own styles that portrayed a message. 

I started with sketched in pencil of just what I was planning on doing. I have has this suit mixed with dress idea for a while so there wasn't a ton od innitial idea generation. I strted right off the bat with just some regular paper and a pencil and drew my general hsapes and ideas. I then added color with markers to create a fuller image in my head fo what I wanted to do. I re sketched this idea several times with different modifications, to make sure I had the design right and was suitable for the materials I was to use. I originally was going to make both of the collages on one piece of paper, but that proved to be too small, so I changed it to having two seperate pices of paper. Then once I was finished there was too much blank space, so I cut them out making them almost like small paper dolls.  At the beginning I had also planned to stitch through the finished collage product but it proved to be too time consuming and well as take away from the design.