efflorescence
Project
Pre-Thesis
Year
2021
Location
NYC, USA
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spring 2022 collection
This collection focuses on creating diverse and versatile wedding wear.
Removing restricting traditional ideals of what wedding wear should look like, this collection aims to create wedding pieces that evoke a sense of joy and self-confidence when people wear them while breaking free from body type, age, gender identity, even the color and styles of wedding wear.
This collection also considers the sustainability of wedding attire, creating looks that can be repurposed and turned into day-to-day wear.
When researching for the target audience of this collection I interviewed couples, whose ages ranged from mid-’20s to late ’30s. When conversing about wedding wear many of them had stated that they had wished wedding wear was more sustainable and more than one use.
The couples I interviewed were predominately LGBT+, and they had wished that wedding attire was more versatile and how they were rather tired of the strict gender binary that is accustomed to the idea of weddings.
A focal point of this collection is defying the binary of gender. A wedding traditionally is heteronormative and follows strict gender binaries. However, with more countries legalizing LGBT marriage and becoming more accepting, there is now a marketable opening to create wedding attire for queer people made by queer designers.
Another smaller focus was sustainability, and creating wedding wear that could maintain the extravagance of traditional wedding attire. While also be wearable enough to be used and worn again for different occasions.
Often times wedding attire is made from satins and silks; while these fabrics are beautiful, they are not very sustainable.
Thus the type of satin I used is a new ‘vegan’ spinning fiber made from roses. The roses' petal fiber is made by extracting from the natural waste of rose petals. The fiber is then stripped and processed to create a luxurious and soft spinning fiber similar to silk. I ended up using several different naturally dyed rose petal satin.
In working with clo3d, I focused on rendering and creating realistic texture as well as attempting to evoke the same romantic feeling that the actual garment gives. For the backgrounds, I wanted to have a fantastical atmosphere that cannot be attained in reality.
