Project by: Amelia Langton (11th Grade)
Project Advisor: James French
Student(s)’s Advisor(s): Daniel Li
Description of the Project:
In this project, I will be exploring how stories, personality, and character are conveyed through fashion. Fabienne, a fictional French mercenary nicknamed “Le fusilleur” (the executioner) is portrayed in three illustrations. Each garment she wears in the scenes is designed and hand-made into a collection of garments that convey her personal style and attitude.
Final Reflection on Learning:
Over the course of the 2 months I spent working on my honors project, Character in Fashion, I not only developed new skills, but I also learned a lot about myself. The project began with a concept; an idea about a fictional, badass character, who represents everything I admire in a woman. I wanted to capture her attitude and personality visually; taking a 2-dimensional story and making it a 3-dimensional reality. The goal of the project was to be able to feel and become her character when you put on the clothes. The first step was to illustrate her character, which I thought would be one of the easier steps since I’ve always loved to draw. Even though I’ve been confident in my art in the past, I found myself being continuously held back by my expectation for perfection. Once I acknowledged this, I really tried to let the art create Itself, rather than forcing it to be something unattainable. My need for perfection was something that both benefitted and restricted me while working on my project.
The second step in my project was to create the outfits that I had drawn, this was the part I was most excited about, and also the most scared of. I’ve always loved conceptualizing, designing, and drawing clothing and outfits, and have always wanted to learn how to actually make them. Luckily, because both of my parents went to college for fashion, they were able to help me through every step of the process. I learned how to cut a pattern, how to make a toile which you use as a practice garment, and sew different pieces together with a sewing machine to create the final garment. My favorite part of the process was seeing the final product once I finished, seeing the final wearable piece that was once shapeless sheets of fabric and loose threads. Now I can look at any shirt, dress, or pair of pants and visually deconstruct it to figure out how it was made. Though I must say, I ran into a lot of obstacles in this process. Because I have never sewn before, I often became frustrated or felt like giving up when things didn’t work out. There were so many complications, the sewing machine would malfunction, the pants were too big than too small, the dress fabric kept coming apart. These were the moments I felt so angry I wanted to give up, I wanted everything to come out exactly how I pictured it and do so easily. This project made me realize and appreciate all the steps and hard work that goes into making just one piece of clothing. I was challenged with a level of problem-solving I had never dealt with before; if something didn’t work out, I had to approach it from a different angle, make compromises, rip it up, and try again. This taught me that for something to turn out perfect, you have to fail before you produce your best work. After completing my project, I feel like I’ve finally found my passion, and learned so many things about my creative process along the way.
Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the garment-making aspect of my project. Along with drawing up some more accurate drawings of the clothes, I learned how to create a pattern – which is a drawing of the panel for the fabric I end up sewing. I also went to the garment district and bought some fabric and trims for the pants I’ll be making.
Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):
During weeks 4-6, I learned and practiced how to sew on pieces of scrab fabric; practicing keeping a consistent seam allowance, threading a sewing machine, and how to create different garments. To prepare to make my final pieces I had to first make a toile: after you cut the paper pattern, you make a mock pair of pants using a cheaper/simpler fabric that has a similar stretch as the fabric I’m using. By making a toile, you can see if the garment fits in all the right places and if it generally looks right on your body.
Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):
To finish my process, I had to make the final pant. When I tried on my toile pants, I found that they were a bit too tight, so I added a quarter of an inch to the paper pattern on both legs. I sewed them together, and all that’s left is to add the leather waistband and make some more clothes.
TRIMESTER 2 UPDATES:
Description of the Project: In this project, I will be exploring how stories, personality, and character are conveyed through fashion. Fabienne, a French mercenary nicknamed “Le fusilleur” (the executioner) will be illustrated in four watercolor and pen drawings. Each garment she wears in the scenes will be designed and hand-made into a clothing line.
Final Reflection on Learning: This project has been a long time idea of mine that has been stuck in my head for as long as I can remember. I was first inspired to create the character Fabienne after learning about the state of Germany in the late 1980’s after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The demise of Soviet grasp on Germany and the introduction of free market caused an eruption of organized crime and corrupt underfunds organization. This made me think about the atmosphere of the time, specifically what role a woman would play in this turbulent climate. While I was taking a class on Graphic Novel Literature in Trimester II was when my ideas came into fruition. Initially, my idea was to create an entire short comic on a French mercenary working in Germany named Fabienne. A level-headed, yet a little crazy young woman with no mercy or fear of a little blood on her hands, and an amazing sense of style. At the end of the comic, there would be a lookbook of all the outfits and garments she had worn during the story, then I would make the clothes. As I began to work out the kinks of the project beyond my main idea, I realized there were a lot of aspects I just couldn’t accomplish. I had never illustrated a full comic since I was in middle school, especially with time constraints there was no way I was drawing each panel out with perfect detail and composition, as well as hand-making an entire line of clothes. For a while, I felt stuck with my project and actually dreaded doing it. The only thing I actually enjoyed doing was the fashion illustration. The main point of the project was not only to tell the story of the character, but to showcase how she fashioned herself, and provoke the viewer to want to dress like her themselves. Close to the end of the trimester, I tweaked how I was going to go about my project. Instead of writing and illustrating an entire comic, I’m creating 3-5 illustrations resembling splash pages in a comic book. In these illustrations, Fabienne is wearing the clothes I’ve designed for her. The main thing I want to be apparent in the illustrations as well as the garments I create is a sense of character, that the clothes aren’t just fabric and prints or just a top or just a bottom, that they have a personality, and they tell a story. So far, my time working on this project has taught me a lot about myself as an artist and as a person. I realized that I can’t go into drawing, or any situation, with pre-set high expectations. Whenever I would strata a drawing, I would go into it thinking that it has to look a certain way, and has to be perfect, when in reality the best art I’ve created is when I’m not thinking about it too much. For Trimester III, the plan is to have a wearable fashion line of 5-6 garments inspired by the character (and showcased in the illustrations) designed and completed.
Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):
During my first few weeks working on my project, I have made good progress working on fashion drawings and curating the character’s outfits, studying poses/the figure, as well as begun to thumbnail a few panels in of the comic. While I’m proud I’ve accomplished these things, I’ve also run into a few roadblocks and realized that this project is going to be a little harder than I thought, but I am up for the challenge. My first struggle was figuring out what the face of the character looks like, since I always spend a long time drawing detailed faces, I want to learn how to draw more simple/cartoonish faces. I was also struggling to find good reference photos for my illustrations, so my goals for the following weeks are to take my own reference photos and work on the character’s face, possibly do more fashion drawings as well.
Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):
The past few weeks I worked on a few different things. I’ve begun to figure out what I want the face of my character to look like, exploring some different facial features/expressions. Additionally, I sketched up a few more fashion figures to work with a few different poses than the ones I’ve been using. I also continued to thumbnail some of my panels/splash pages, but upon doing so I realized I want to tweak my project a bit. Instead of writing and illustrating an entire comic book, instead, I’m only going to illustrate 4-5 scenes from the comic book (featuring the clothing I’ve been creating) that best represent the character, and base the fashion line on that rather than an entire comic book (which is why I’ve also changed the name of my project).
Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):
These are 3/4 illustrations of the character Fabienne, I still need to make a few edits and additions to them before they are finished, then I’ll need to watercolor them. These past weeks I’ve learned that I produce my best work when I go into the process without any high expectations or strict mental guidelines, and instead just let my creativity create itself rather than force things out that aren’t meant to be. I’m currently working on the last photo shown above and figuring out how I want her leather trenchcoat to look. I’ve also been researching and mapping out the next stage of my process; actually making the clothes.
