Accessory Development for Life’s Labyrinth
I actually had so much fun developing and brainstorming the accessories and styling for my thesis: I could use the styling to really push forward the messages I wanted understood, they could accentuate and improve pieces I wasn’t crazy about, and could be interesting pieces on their own as well. Op-art and optical illusions have been a large underlying theme of this project, and I wanted to use accessories to really push that message forward.
I’m not much of a “sketcher” so I began this process in photoshop instead. I started with the makeup board using a face-template makeup artists use to sketch out their ideas— I’ve worked as a makeup artist here and there, so I feel confident about the possibility of these looks. I then kept collecting and collaging images of M.C. Escher’s art, different uses of mirrors and reflecting spheres, and optical illusions or impossible shapes to design the accessories in batches.
I then started sorting accessories by look so I could see everything together in one organized place and figure out exactly what supplies I would need to make these objects: One of the most exciting parts about the accessory design was seeing these all together and knowing I absolutely could make all these objects quite easily.
I then got to work ordering all my materials (I filled three notebook pages with ordering notes) and have been making these items ever since. Since most of them are quite straightforward or quick in their execution it’s easy to fall behind on documenting the accessories. I still have a handful to finish making, but overall I’ve been having a lot of fun and a lot of success in getting these done.
With so much happening in the last few weeks of the semester I was trying to constantly be working on something from the project, and many of the accessories were easy enough to do in these moments of time between classes or during a lecture, but having to move quickly onto the next thing meant it was harder and hard to document the accessories as they were completed. The photo shows all the completed accessories (minus one pair of shoes!) for my Fibers review a few days before the Fashion Show.
