THE TEXTILE TRIALS

Respecting My Color Palette: Finding Out What Colors Work Best for Me

article and layout by MARS ROSS

Duct tape, comics, and bottle caps are not the traditional components we think of when it comes to clothes. But with every kind of glue imaginable and a lot of mistakes along the way, I found ways to create textiles with these unconventional materials. While these may not be for everyday wear, hopefully, they can still be appreciated for their design. You will be my judge and jury, it’s up to you to decide if these clothes win their case. With no needle or thread, the fashion court is now in order.

Growing up, my sister and I were always crafting, making beaded bracelets and scrapbooking. With nothing to do during Covid, I started learning techniques to make more intricate beaded pieces and earrings. The outcome was simple and timeless, the kind of jewelry that goes with everything. I started selling what I made to friends and creating custom pieces for them as well.

Once in-person classes started again, I stopped making jewelry until the announcement of the Lotus fashion show. It gave me the chance to make things I always wanted to but didn’t have a reason to. I embellished a vest and hat with chains and charms and created ornate body pieces and headpieces. The results were unlike anything I had ever made, but the complicated clasps and fragile nature limited them to a life on the runway instead of day-to-day wear.

By the end of the show, I already had the next fashion show in mind and a fountain of inspiration from the other designers. I began to consider what I could create for my senior collection. With limited sewing skills, my first idea was to create a garment out of safety pins. The process was beyond time-consuming, but the skill set to make it was just like making jewelry, only on a much larger scale. After attaching each and every safety pin with jump rings, I had a skirt and top without sewing an inch.

During this time I was taking a history of fashion class with Marilyn Civantic. I learned about designers throughout history who threw the traditional aspects of design to the wind. In the early 1900s, designers were making highly tailored suits and corseted dresses that required copious amounts of sewing. Mariano Fortuny took a different route. His infamous delphos dress was achieved with only a few seams.

With a loose silhouette, his design became popular because it freed women from the highly restrictive clothes they were accustomed to. Paul Poiret was another designer who redefined women’s wear with comfortable loose silhouettes. He wasn’t an expert tailor like Dior or the House of Worth but he still wanted to be a force in fashion, and he was.

Nicknamed “The King of Fashion” in the 1910s, Poiret used draping techniques to minimize sewing and maximize Eastern aesthetics. Poiret also famously created the lampshade dress, a garment with a hoop-like skirt resembling a lamp. This inspired me to take the idea more literally and create a dress from lampshades.

During Christmas break, I scoured flea markets and thrift stores in my hometown to find two lampshades that I could use for the project. Luckily I came across a pair of shades for sale without their bases. I took them home and started ripping out the lining, contemplating how I could make them wearable.

With my dad’s tool shed in the backyard, I knew there had to be a solution. He helped me cut out a section of the metal frame and they fit around me perfectly. A little hot glue, some ribbon and fringe brought the shades a step up from their former glory on the thrift shelves and turned them into a wearable light fixture. Among the plethora of items I could find in my childhood home to work with was my brother’s stash of old comic books. I cut out the pages and connected them with tape and a few sheets of press and seal. Using wrapping paper in place of pattern paper, I traced the sections of a collared shirt and traced again onto my new comic “material.” Heaps of tape and a tin foil collar later, a new kind of tailoring is now up for debate. Regardless of its questionable durability, the idea of a comic book shirt was a reality, with heroes and villains combating throughout the garment.

After working on these projects over the course of a year, I finished everything in time for the fashion show and to be featured in this issue. With nine textiles on trial, each piece has its own story, but it’s up to you to decide if they are clothes, art or both. I couldn’t have done it without Lotus, my parents, and the rebellious designers that came before me. You don’t have to be a seamstress to make something wearable and there are no rules to fashion, only a need for creativity.