Encoded Cloth – Team 4 Documentation
Our team’s full photo album can be viewed HERE.
Our concept
When we first received this project, our group saw an opportunity to explore connection. We initially brainstormed a seasonal piece based on our birthdays. Our group is comprised of two Winter birthdays, a Fall birthday, and a Spring birthday. Approaching this project with a seasonal framework would create a pattern that flows while allowing us to inform our own seasonal portions. However, we pivoted from this idea due to complications in developing our fabric print. That being said, we still hoped to capture aspects of identity and connection without being cliche, and we realized that we honestly didn’t know what that meant. What does it mean to be of somewhere and yet different? To be a mix? To have predominant identities? How does your identity inform your future and forward decisions? Where did you come from? What identifies YOU? Who are you as a function of your identity?
We further abstracted and began contemplating the human experience. We all come from somewhere, and we all experience similar pains and desires. We realized that the parts of us that are similar make us human, and the parts that are different make us, us. So with this project, we hoped to convey the things that make us human in conjunction to those things that make us individuals. We wanted to showcase who we are as a function of our experiences and highlight the individual people rather than the boxes they fit into. As such, the mission of this project became an expression of identity with an emphasis on how we express ourselves versus who we are to express it.
To this end, we decided to make various upper apparel pieces that reflected our individual styles and identities, while using our group screen printed cloth as the tangible connecting thread between each of our pieces. We individually created humanoid figures performing various daily tasks or movements. These figures were then dispersed and printed using black ink on white cloth and white ink on black cloth. The simplicity of the colors leaves each of the figures up to interpretation and gave us wiggle room to experiment with our own style. Other motifs were shared between us to varying degrees, further expressing that which connects us, while displaying the ways the different ways we manifested these.
Catherine
My encoded cloth project is a black crew neck sweater with applique and floral embroidery. I chose a crew neck form because it speaks to comfort and multi applicability. These themes resonate with me because I have always believed that style should be comfortable, and I aspire to be someone who and to create things that are purely themselves but, without changing, can fit a range of settings at any given time. In addition, I cropped the sweater so that it fits me to a T. I immediately decided on a black form because it speaks to my own blackness, and it is a perfect setting for the imagery I hoped to depict. The front panel contains both screen printed fabrics. I placed the fabrics in front because I feel they are an introduction. They invite viewers to relate, to suspend disbelief, and to look closer. They present me as a person just like you. The arms are covered in flowers. I love flowers, and I love to place bold colors in a dark context. To me, flowers represent new life, responsibility, growth, natural beauty, and hope. Their vines extend upward from my wrists, and the flowers become darker as you rise. Finally, the back panel is a combination of an African cloth, bottle caps, a white flower, and jean strips. The cloth harkens to my ethnic culture. It is the background for the identity that I have built for myself. The jean strips came from Jessica’s jacket and remind me of my American upbringing and the ways it further informs my identity. The bottle caps are almost random. They seem out of place and yet they fit. I liked the colors and imagery they displayed, and I decided to include them in my piece. Finally, I generally wanted to explore a three dimensional shape, and I used translucent, pleated fabric and one of Lucian’s chainmail flowers to create a pop out flower. This project was a labor of love, and I was really excited to create something that expressed elements of my personality in this form. It makes me excited to try other wearable projects.
Lucian
My goal when creating this piece was to finally create the sleeve project that had been on my mind for years while also staying within the bounds of our group theme. The original project of mine would have been to create a sleeve completely out of chainmail. However, in keeping with the requirements and also the theme of individuality, I decided to create mine half out of chainmail and half out of the printed cloth we had made. By constructing my sleeve out of these two materials I could convey ideas of modern and tradition through my choice in materials, creation techniques, and joining techniques. The chainmail pieces I used are made out of an aluminum alloy, stainless steel, and silicone. This mixture of a variety of metals is only possible now in the modern era. However, the patterns I used in the making are both very traditional in origin. This gives the chainmail a traditional look, while also looking new due to the shine from the material choice. The first plan was to join the fabric to the mail sections by riveting the edges and using rings to go through the center hole. However, I ended up going with a more natural look with the rings going straight through the fabric. By creating my piece in patches and layering the materials I tried to convey the idea that while each person has their own style and background that is defined by both their environment and their personality, their will always be something to tie them to this grander idea of “humanity”. While my wearable very much represents who I am and my hobbies and interests, it should also appeal to a wider audience. With more time I would have liked to create each seam in such a way to resemble one of the techniques we learned in class, especially some of the embroidery patterns. There is one such seam in the front near the shoulder area, but I did not have time to do all of the others.
Jessica:
For my encoded cloth piece, I wanted to create a wearable that I would be able to use and wear after this project. I wanted to not only incorporate the theme of the humanistic qualities that unite us into my piece with the printed fabric that we created, but also introduce aspects that represent myself. To do this, I specifically picked denim and leather to signify the typical “Americana” feel that the cloths have, choosing this specifically to represent my childhood growing up in America. To build onto that, and to incorporate the embroidery techniques that some of my other team members used, I stitched a flower, eyeball and quill onto the back of the jacket. Each one represents a different value that my family instilled in me growing up, the flower being a love and appreciation of nature, the eye representing the importance to observe and take in my surroundings and other people in it, and finally the quill to represent the importance of learning and knowledge. I also used other things, like beads and chains, to embellish the piece, making it cohesive with my partners and as well representing other techniques and things that I am interested in. Overall, I am very happy with how my piece turned out. If I were to have more time or do it over again, I think I would have possibly added more embroidered images to the sleeves or front of the jacket.
Ashley:
When creating my piece, I was heavily inspired by Asian fashions and their use of mixed matched patterns in their clothing. I really like wearing clothing that uses patterns untraditionally and I figured creating a mixed match piece would be my way of sharing my individuality within the group. Additionally, knowing our team would be sharing different materials, I knew I wanted to provide a base where the idea of collage or mix-matched was normal. I consider my style as a librarian aesthetic where my clothing tends to be more modest and of classic silhouettes. I thrifted two large men’s shirts because most of my clothing is from goodwill to begin with and I knew that the act of using reclaimed fabric for my project only strengthened the individual perspective of this project. This tank top is something I would often wear, especially since it has a collar. I took our group’s concept to heart when constructing this garment because I wanted the shape of it to be representative of me and my preferred style of dressing myself while also considering the elements from my peers. For instance, I replaced the buttons of the shirt with Jessica’s pearls, incorporated Lucian’s chainmail flowers and sewed the white of our printed with black thread to be parallel with the graphic tone of Catherine’s piece. To me, this shirt represents our team’s own unique perspectives but the fact that we were a team allowed the subtle sharing of ideas and influences onto ourselves.