Fashion Design MFA Class of 2019

Title: ME:SPOKE

Open sourced clothing design for the uncommon body ME:SPOKE the Bespoke process you lead. To create an open-sourced and versatile wardrobe, focused on individuals or groups whose embodiment has been ignored by mainstream fashion. Using digital scanning, creative tools for measuring and 3d pattern making software to see a whole person, and to give each unique user the power to create in an ME:SPOKE environment. Interested in serving postmenopausal, mastectomy recipients, elderly, non-binary and transgendered individuals, the very lithe and those with lots of projection, someone you know.

Title: Living With Loss

Can we ask our clothing to do more for us when we feel the hollowing forces of grief? Identifying the physical and mental signifiers of grief; to create interdisciplinary responses to the needs of modern mourners. Building upon an emotional seed, ‘Living with Loss’ explores the immense possibilities that conceptual research can bring to better understand and serve those who have lost.

Title: Sensory Processing: Embodiment and Dysfunction

Question: How does our sensory perception inform our sense of embodiment?

Answer? By looking at Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD) in people with autism and special needs individuals as a lens through which to explore the wearable’s. The intent is to develop new systems, products and materials for this community. Investigating and then in turn integrating the experiences of people with SPD’s to inform design and address pre-existing needs. 

Title: Explicate°Elevate

Materials and their interactions with bleeding edge technologies are the key to the future. My work explores the area between surface design and structural integrity. Recent experiments -- including paper cutting, and Google’s Tilt Brush, while using graphics and artwork as an emotional self-expression -- have given my work a new dimension. I have new questions. My designs can be outwardly engaging, but if there is an emotional foundation for the work I produce, will viewers be able to experience a personal connection?

Imagine a multidisciplinary pattern drafting system in which entirely new construction methods are possible. I am creating a method to bring sculptures and paintings from the 3D world into a 2D format appropriate for knitting patterns, cut & sew, or any other discipline. In fusing “old world” craft and emerging technologies into one process, my pieces embody tradition and innovation. I’m interested in developing high contrast relationships between textiles and other components in new contexts. Is it possible to create a new system of patternmaking that can bridge the gap among distinct design disciplines?

Title: non-sensory WASTE

Me: inside a sensory deprivation tank - no gravity, no sight, no sound or touch – nothing. A scene rushes through my mind. I imagined myself as the ocean made up of all sorts of pollutants, I was extremely terrified, I was sick. I understood the ocean as a living organism that was about to die. 

Paper, plastics, bottles, cans, human waste, chemicals, every kind of waste imaginable, making what should be a clean supply of the core element needed to sustain life, now toxic.  Waste and pollution are not new problems but what is a new is how I intend to explore these issues and begin to heal the oceans by integrating these wastes into my design process. Re:claiming to Re:invent NEW materiality, fabrications and in turn innovate in the fashion design space.

Title: MY MOBILE CANVAS: FROM SPACES TO PLACES

Lifestyle: the way in which a person or group lives and experiences life’s places, spaces, emotions, interactions etc...

Creating a body of work that imposes a new way of LIFE and “lifestyle branding”; Offer more than just clothes, Offer the true experience. I hope to redefine galleries, stores and the overall way that people symbiotically interact with art, fashion and space.

Create an experience that offers inspiration and the lifestyle behind making these mobile-canvases. Through first hand, I plan to offer a truly living, breathing and experimental mood board. 

Unique experiences through rooms/spaces/place that reflect the body and the personality of the individual. Designed with an eclectic inspiration from personal art and interests: contemporary art, graffiti art, street art, pop art, formal wear, luxury goods and street culture. There is an obvious juxtaposition of cultures with strong focus on street culture crossed with aristocracy.

Practicality and Acceptance are our biggest enemies; using these experiences and works of art I aim to destroy various labels, boundaries, and stereotypes against  artists, toys, masculinity and youthfulness

I enjoy exploring the unexpected and uncharted beauty of things.

Title: My Little Finger

The little finger on my left hand was broken. The exterior was changed due to the dislocation of the bones. I would hide it in my pocket when in public.

The different body: And the liberation of it! – standing it under the sunshine, being proud of one’s own body. The individual is the nature, you can not choose it! My persevered inferiority disappeared in time, believing it to be unique.

Every diverse body part of ‘the different’ is fantastic reality simultaneously.  

To explore these ideas my process includes collages, paintings, sculpture installation and performance research by doing before clothes even enter my lexicon.

Title: du·al·ism

Is everything that exists in our stream consciousness and beyond two-fold? Polarities can manifest in control and chaos, in there a physical and the emotional? is there an in-between? Finding balance in the imbalance maybe? Looking beyond the surface can we observe new layers of meaning and intent?

Often contradictions between what we see and the inherited perception is the same, but blindingly different – Is there a generational dyslexia at play? I ask is there a reciprocity channel between the physical and the emotional? A trompe l'oeil of ideals so to speak, and in that the manifestation of du·al·ism?

 

Title: KIDULT

From my childhood I remember a love of collectable toys and character figures, I collected them with aspirations and escapism to be older, to be an ADULT. 

KIDULT focuses on the idea of creating a new nostalgia from the perspective of contradiction, disharmony and my PTSD - When does one become an adult and stop being a child?

Title: The unknown communication 

What is the purpose of communication?

From the ancient hieroglyphic to the modern emoji. Image based graphic communication tools that have evolved based on the need to document and share stories more efficiently. I therefore ask what does a future communication system look like? And what role does fashion play in it? Fashion as communication is extremely powerful. It can be visual, cultural, personal, emotional and influential, The true power exists in the stories that needs to be told, the truth that needs to be known, the love that needs to be shared, the humanity that we have in our hearts. Our relationships with our wardrobes and the memory attached to the item.

Can clothing be considered as new Font or Typeface? How can we embed meaning into the final fashion object to keep the stories alive to collect them and archive them.

Title: Nil

A newfangled visual vernacular for fashion, that speaks to an emotional impetus, an expression, that provokes and challenges the norms of fashion and expression.

The essence is to channel the emotional entity whilst challenging the three pillars of fashion i.e. Textile Development (or Yardage Creation), Garment Construction (beyond the cut and sew, pattern drafting and draping) and Materiality of the future, to create a tactile and visual narrative, with the new norms of society and existence. Focusing on issues of abuse, gender, and oppression, to provoke and question the existence and endurance of the matriculation of civilization into the next era.

Title: Line quality the story of an individuals life-cycle

Can line quality reflect a personality? Is it possible to use graphology to track life? Are we able to build a wardrobe the same way we do an essay?  A single letter formed at the hand of a calligrapher, a sentence, paragraph, chapter, story?

Can we analyze the Glyphomancy? - The body as the notebook maybe?

Emotion and feeling – Story telling inside of a tattoo, line-by-line, stroke-by-stroke, pin-by-pin. Each character a mark representing the character - the individual.

Ink-and-brush, old as time its self. What do we have in common with these two? What unites us? 

Mark-Making with meaning explored through phonetics, linguistics, semantics, all within the mistranslations of genealogy.

Title:  Plant???

How to create your own planet? DESCRIBE YOURS!

MINE IS: Hollow with pinkish and cyan sky, you enter this planet by magic pink gas. It has low gravity, water and mountains float in the air, luminous plants, flying jellyfish, dragons and lots more. some very advanced city were building while some interesting stories are happening on this planet........More to come…… Watch this SPACE 

<img" src="/images/yuchen-hun.jpg" alt="Yuchen Hun work" width="100%" />

Title: Belongingness

I want to find out what emotion drives people to find home and belongingness. I want to look into what is it that makes us relate, and how to feel home even without understanding or memories.

I believe that identity has a strong connection on belongingness, “who we are” has a big part to play on what or how do we feel belong. Identities are the cores of who we are, and belongingness is their echo. I believe this is the key concept for forming belongingness in a person.

I also found this book called “The Art of Community: Seven Principles of Belonging”, in the book the author talks about how “Boundary”, “Initiation”, “Rituals”, “Temple”, “Stories”, “Symbols”, “Inner Rings”. I am researching deeper into what these principles play in the role of belongingness, I believe this is the key concept for forming belongingness in a community.

We all want to belong to somewhere, something, or some people, that’s something very human, and that is why I am very intrigued into this topic.

Title: Amendment of a Tailor 

By absorbing the skill of the traditional tailor, I become an apprentice to the constructs of the cloth and the limitations of the already understood garment. I examine the twisted boundaries between menswear and womenswear, explore the order of make and challenge the usual steps taken to make clothes, can I make it first then pattern-cut it. 

I also ask - what is personal taste? Challenge the idea of aesthetics through the microscope of a sartorialist and paradoxically the telescope of a futurist.