I, Anonymous I-Ching Logan 陳怡靜 MA Digital Fashion 2009/10, London College of Fashion http://www.ichinglogan.com/ ichinglogan@gmail.com +44.7707.661.554 +886.935.095.391
I was born in Taiwan, used to be a graphic/multimedia designer and have an interest in cosplay1 since 1998. In order to expand my interest, I went to Milan for studying fashion design in 2003. Following this, I would like to combine my previous experiences and my interest together. Therefore, I applied this course MA Digital Fashion in London College of Fashion in 2009. This collection, “I, Anonymous�, included two parts. The first part is the virtual fashion collection with eight outfits on Second Life, which was made in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The second part is the work of four latex outfits, which are chosen the collection.
I-Ching Logan
1. COSPLAY: n. the practice of dressing up as a character from a film, book, etc., especially one from the Japanese genres of manga or anime. v. Engage in cosplay - Derivatives cosplayer n. - Original 1990s: blend of costume + play (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2008)
→ Part. 1 The Virtual Collection There are eight outfits in this section. This collection is influrenced by a large number of female video game characters, and several Sci-Fi animations and films. It is a mixed style of nostalgia of the 70’s, cyberpunk, and hardcore. Swirls and curves are both used in this collection. The images in the crop circles can be seen in the designs as well. In order to present this collection in a futuristic style, most of the colours I chose are cold tones.
Making of I, Anonymous The Virtual Collection The following pages will show the works I have done for each outfits. Firstly I drew the sketches and scanned on computer. These sketches needed to tide up before I transferred them into Second Life patterns. I used Illustrator to redraw all of the outfits, and pasted the designs on Second Life templates to adject into 3D shape. The templates can be find in Second Life Wiki. In Second Life, all garments are devided into upper body and lower body (skirt or trousers). Therefore, all of the dresses and bodysuits have to be cut in half and remade. There are colour marks on the upper body and lower body templates. In this collection, there are some swirls and curves from upper body to lower body. As long as we work carefully to match the colour marks, the patterns will show perfectly in Second Life. The other notable thing is all of the garments layers have an immoble orders avatars. The trousers are always in the bottom, then the upper body, and the skirt is always on the top. If we are making a dress, we need to match the colour marks on upper body instead of the bottom of the top. When we are making a bodysuit, we still need to match the colour marks, and shorten the top when we dress the avatar. Otherwise, we will see the bottom of the top cover on the trousers. If we want to make a jacket, we can use the upper body and the top of the skirt pattern to make the jacket. Once the images are completed in Illustrator, we can import them to Photoshop to add shade and texitures. In this collection, I chose latex as the texiture . There are various texitures can be found in the Second Life marketplace, or draw by ourselves. After the shade and texiture are added on the patterns, saved the files in .TGA format, and then the patterns are ready for Second Life.
How to read following pages: 01. The number of the outfits. The number is in the upper left corner. Alternately, there are eight small avatars in the bottom right. The highlight one shows which outfit it is. 02. The orginal design, hand-drawing sketches. 03. The design drew and coloured in Illustrator. The outfit may changed a bit due to the rules of making 3D patterns in Second Life. 04. The image for Second Life. The designs in previous stage will paste on the template and adject in the right shape, and then import into Photoshop to add shade and texture. This is the last image before upload onto Second Life. 05. The colour charts of current outfit.
This dress is a prefect symmetrical dress. The middle pieces are transparent with a complex design of circles based on a six-fold geormetry. It was a crop circus found in 2004 in Honey Street, Wiltshire. This dress skillfully shows the skin, but also covers some controverial points.
This dress has beautiful curves on the whole dress. There are some small pieces in natural colour, which are transparent with a complex design of circles based on a six-fold geormetry. It was a crop circus found in 2004 in Honey Street, Wiltshire. This dress is the only dress in warm colour, as in most of the Sci-Fi stories need a character shows pure, warm, or dangerous.
This dress has big swirls on the whole dress. The colour and shape reminds people mermaid. The cut shows the beatiful shape of the body, and the hole on the skirt brings people some interesting imagination.
This top is corset style with swirl design. Since the top has very strong impression, I designed simple trousers with the top.
This ourfit is a symmetical design. It has swirl and bandage design. The shoulder design has problem in Second Life, so I removed it and also changed the sleeve shape.
This outfit is another symmetical one. It has the bndage and Japanese ninja style, which is a taboo and powerful. The colour I cohse here shows mysterious. and also feminine.
This outfit is another symmetical one. It has the bndage style, with stripes on the bottom on the top. The deisgn of the top and the trousers have strong Japanese style.
After a series of cold and Sci-fi style, this outfit brings some warm from the earth. In the same time, it also shows the regulation of this collection. This is all about Karma. In the second life design, cause it was difficult ro make single sleeve, I changed the design in the last second.
→ Part. 2 The Real Garments There are four outfits in this section. These outfits ar made in 0.45mm latex. The patterns are created in Illustrator and have been done by laser cut. In order to present the concept, You are who you pretend to be (Sherry Turkle, 1995, Life On The Screen), I modelled this series myself. By wearing different outfits,wigs, and make-up, everyone can be a different person.
Making of I, Anonymous The Real Garments The following pages will show the pattens and the latex outfits. While I was thinking to make the virtual collection into real garments, I was suggested to use PVC or latex. My collection in Second Life looks plastic, and it would not look similar to the design if I use cotton. The other reason to choose PVC or latex is the style of this collection is cyberpunk. I have had the experience on PVC, and I would like to try different materials. Therefore, I went to several latex outfit shop to do some research. Finally I decided to use latex to make the outfits. Making latex outfits doesn’t need a sewing maching, but glues and solvant. It is much more like a craftwork than tailoring. Following by the book Making Latex Clothes (Sian-kate Mooney, 2004), I choose Marabu Fixogum, which is a solvent-based glue. It is transparent, getting dry faster than copydex, and will not leave any white glue on the latex. The other essential item for making latex outfit is solvent. Before applying glue on the latex, it needs to be clean properly. If there is any dust or baby powder left on the latex, they will not stick well. Besides this, solvent can also clean up the glue, when making any mistakes. There are two ways I chose to stick latex pieces together. The first one is cutting latex into stripes, and using the stripes as tapes to stick the patterns together. The advantage to stick in this way is the top side of the outfit will be very neat and clean. In order to cut the patterns perfectly, I sent the patterns for laser cutting, accompanied the flower-like crop circle pattern on the natural colour latex. These are the photos of the topside and inside of one outfit. The topside looks perfect, and the Fixogum glue did not leave any white marks. However, I had to cut the tape in short pieces, which made the inside looks slightly messy.
The other way to stick latex together is overlapping one piece on the other one. To do this, it needs to leave approximate 10mm on some patterns. It is not necessary to leave seam allowances on each pattern. Only the bottom patterns need allowances, so I needed to think carefully which pieces are going to be the bottom ones. The advantage to stick in this way is easy to work, but I found that it was a bit difficult to match together, and the edges are not very neat to me.
After gluing all pieces together, it is time to clean up the whole outfit, and the latex garment is ready.
This outfit is symmetical dress. unually latex outfit has its zip in the front or back, but this one can not have a zip in a normal way. It has two zips in each side. The middle patterns are just about to cover the body.
This outfit has an unual pattern. It was reconstructed in Illustrator, and removed unecessary seams. The natural colour latex is transparent.
This dress focuses on the lower body. It shows the beautiful shape of woman body, and also makes people wonder what is inside the middle hole.
Just like the pink dress, this patterns of this bodysuit were also recontructed and removed unecessary seams.
Adobe Illustrator CS5 Adobe Photoshop CS5
The Virtual Collection in Second Life hair design Curious Kitties avatar design Skylark Maidstone: Obsidian Dragon Warrior Princess Avatar (file01, 03) Unit Republic: Gothic Mikiko (file02) [ Tokyo.Girl ] - Asian Petite: Akahana Shape (file04) Lexx Bondar: Dark (Drow) Female Elf, Warrior Princess Avatar (file05) Nail Flux: Hate - Complete avatar (file06) ono Zinner: [NeurolaB Inc.] Cyber AV ANDROID SX-9 Grey (file07) sunnyboy2103 Holmer: gothic desire black red dress set with skin (file08) shoe design amandine Arai: NeurolaB Inc.] Ultimate Boots pack all colors (file01, 02, 03, 04, 08) Nada Daviau: NADAS*HIGH CLASS ANKLE BOOTS*SILVER (file05) Tigerlily Hyun: *Sexy Mamas* Black Ankle Boots (file06, 07) designer kits Evely Wolff: Lill’Bish LATEX Designer Kit PNG - Xtrem Shine LoliGoth Nightfire: Latex kits 11 templates TGA 1024X1024px clothing template Stella Gravois: Skirt Generator Short Model E webmistrex Xue: 50 Model Poses DM01 photos were taken in [NeurolaB Inc.] main store Marron’s Onsen Jinjya, Shinto Shrine Y.A.Y. Nature & Garden Supplies Bladerunner City
Special thanks to Dr Julia Gaimster
The Letex Outfits in Real Life Letex supplier Pantonville Ltd Laser Cut by CUTLASERCUT.COM Other Materials London Graphic Centre (Covent Garden) Gates DIY Stores
Photoshooting Photographer Blue Changhui Lee Makeup Artist Mana Liu
Many thanks to Celine Gaurier-Joubert & Grubser’s Bar & Lounge