I’ve written this article for two reasons: To remember who I was and To REALLY SHOW I studied fashion design (to my friends and my colleagues).
If somebody asks me to list the best movies I have watched in my life, I am sure “Black Swan” would get one of the seats. The reason could be due to its creative plot indeed, however, the most significant rationale is that it was the very first art-piece that motivated my first fashion-show collection. The drawings and the story that I am going to share were finished actually 10 years ago when I was still eager to be a world-wide fashion designer. Some might wonder why I post it this late, but why not? I have enjoyed a lot myself to trace back my past.
Spoiler Alert: Natalie Portman won the best actress at Academy awards in 2011 with ’Black Swan’. In the movie, she encountered some life-changers whether they are related to her ballet performance or not. Anyway, in a nutshell, it is a story about how ‘White Swan’ transforms herself into ‘Black Swan’.
I was inspired by this primary idea of the movie, and I started to consider “Wouldn’t it be interesting to reflect it into my fashion works?”. The main motivation is simple. I intended to pinpoint no matter how much he/she pure is, life-changing moments can shape this single person’s life completely opposite. Keep this sentence in your mind because it summarises the concepts of the paintings that you are going to enjoy.
Before we dive into the fashion show, I would love to display a brief artwork of the concept in order to support the understanding.
The drawings reflect the transition from, let’s say, ‘Pure’ to ‘Chaos’. You may feel the meaning of these two words is in fact vaguely depicted in the illustrations, but it is okay. Everyone has a different idea of Fashion which why I love(d) being involved in the fashion industry.
Interestingly, I got a ton of requests to produce this see-through blouse dress from my friends (I need investment dear friends…). The point I put my efforts into was the layers of the front side of the shirt so that it piled up sort of protectors, but actually, easily be peeled off.
I have not met many people who understand how to wear a cape (including me). That inspired me to design this cape-jacket-ish item which also displays a little bit of self-protection. But the posture showed that she actually wanted to escape from the barricade that she had built herself, like a baby bird coming out of an egg.
As you may notice, the colour begins to have changed. The clothing which I designed is a fusion robe, which presents a straight shape but puts a focus on different fabrics that combined all together. I would describe that it is the representation of how a person is confronted with many ideas or dissimilar characters that he or she might possess internally.
From now on, you clearly sense a dramatic transition. As I explained above, now we are in the phase of moving to ‘Chaos’ from ‘Pure’. The design principle remains unchanged. Different fabrics divide the borders of the dress, which could be seen as layers depending on your viewpoint (protections), however, they become ambiguous compared to the previous clothes. I wanted to express this smooth flow and mixture of the concepts with this item.
The evening dress brings the same idea as the one before. The challenge for this design was to mix the fabrics altogether, but at the same time, it should not look like ‘Chaotic’ despite the idea of ‘Chaos’. I hope my words convey it unmistakably (Yes, it is either the problem of my vocabulary or the problem of Fashion).
Now I’d like to introduce the finale of the show. Besides sticking to the inspiration, I desired to design something extremely glamorous and sexy stuff that any women would love to wear for fancy parties.
How did you find the show? Well, as a man who is studying business and statistics for his career now, I would like to give a compliment to 16 years old of Me. Now I am very far from fashion design although some might say I still have talent. However, I would like to leave this piece of my history as a memory. I love the works I am doing now, I find more motivations and interests in statistics, which is enough to trigger people to throw a question “HOW COME did you arrive in Statistics from Fashion?!”. Well, I’m going to finish the show with my own thoughts on this question.