Coming back to my real life in Boston was surreal. In London, living in Zandra Rhodes house, something inside my brain had clicked. I felt like Alice, who had fallen down the rabbit hole, gone on this insane journey only to return to real life with an execs of unparalleled memories that changed everything.
The first thing I did after the jet lag wore off was to start sketching. I sketched until my hand was sore and my eyes, heavy. When I wasn’t sketching I was thinking about what my 5 piece collection for my senior year would be. Before I left london, Zandra Rhodes had gifted me with three different hand-printed fabrics. The 5 piece collection would contain all three, but the concept was still emerging. I struggled deeply with the creation of this concept because I look at anything I create as communicating with the world. This grand spectacle would be a chance to say something to a large audience, but what was it I wanted to tell them? After days of thinking about it, I realized I wanted to illustrate my experience in London in a visual spectacular. I wanted to take the viewer down the rabbit hole I fell into, and show them the world of color, beauty, and fantasy I had seen. I aimed to illustrate the merging of Zandras train of thought and style of art with my own. The conclusion of this was that each of the 5 looks in the collection must illustrate a part of this journey. While only I know which parts of the journey they illustrate, the viewer will have the luxury of getting taste of the overall experience.
A second inspiration to this collection came from artist Nick Cave who one of my friends introduced me to when I had gotten back from my trip. Nick Cave works a lot with costumes that contain materials that are designed to be seen in movement. The particular outfit that really inspired me was his raffia costumes. This costumes were heat to toe raffia which is a hula skirt grass that is really light and playable. After watching the outfits move I knew raffia was something I wanted to incorporate into the collection. The designs will change here and there over the corse of creation, but for the most part they are drawn the way they will look in real life.
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| My Final Starting Sketches |
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| Raffia |
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| Print 1 from Zandra Rhodes |
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| Print 2 from Zandra Rhodes |
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| Print 3 from Zandra Rhodes |
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