YEAR 3 AT PARSONS

YEAR 3 PARSONS

MADE YEAR 2 AT PARSONS

My dress was created to inspire movement and freedom for the female body. I was greatly inspired by nineteenth century philosopher Oscar Wilde and his essay The Philosophy of Dress. One quote in particular inspired me, it reads “The beauty of dress, as the beauty of life, comes always from freedom.” I used this quote to inspire my drapes and picture the woman I designed this dress for. The woman is chic, elegant, confident and constantly moving. I designed my dress to embody confidence and comfort while also remaining the classical femininity of the dress.

YEAR 2 PARSONS

Buttons made by sculpting and casting in resin

MADE YEAR 1 AT PARSONS

I started this project by building a large boxy-sculpture made simply out of cardboard. I tried to stay away from harsh triangles and super geometric shapes because it is so far from my personal style. I wanted my skirt to have movement and look like a wearable garment. After I draped my shape, I started draping the muslin to make something that wasn’t clearly from my shape. I initially cut open the top and played around with it but I really didn’t like how it looked and wasn’t finding anything interesting. I then flipped it to have the huge open bottom on the top and found something that I thought was really interesting. I really liked the way that bunching up the fabric to look like a bow looked and then built my skirt around that idea. Instead of going the purely geometric way, I found something that had movement and flow. Since my sculpture was so long the skirt was super long and i kept it that way since it fit with the idea of the bow. My skirt is very geometric and flat in the front and all the volume and intrigue is in the back. I wanted to make this dress as elegant as possible so I chose a white cotton that was a little shiny to emphasis the draping in the back. As I draped the skirt initally in muslin, it started to remind me of the silhouette of a wedding dress. I don’t know if it was simply because the muslin was close to white, but I decided to move the wedding dress idea further. I wanted to make it traditional yet so very not traditional in the sense that its a skirt and how harsh and modern the front was. The white fabric added in the juxtaposition of the front and the back.

MADE YEAR 2 PARSONS