Kitsune | Runway for Lunar Gala

So many hours of work distilled into that one moment

And here's footage of the entire runway show. Check out the other lines on cmuTV's youtube channel!

Delaunay Dress

Computational Knitwear, IN THE FLESH(fiber?)

So this is a dress I've designed for the show next week using the generative cabling/knitting strategies from a ways back. Since this wasn't so much a technical project, but an aesthetic one I took some liberties with the algoirthm, blowing portions of it way up (like the bodice here) or just using strips for the waist band and the edging.

Construction + Pattern Making | Lunar Gala

Leatherworking | Lunar Gala

 

this one started with a leather jacket that I thrifted from a church charity sale a couple years back. Soft, supple, real leather is very expensive,  and I had more than enough for a bodice in this jacket for 5$ (yes foresight!). On the downside, it sort of reeked of cigarettes and old biker babe, which was quickly mended by a trip to the dry cleaners and generous amounts of leather cleaner.

Leather doesn't slide easily against the foot of the sewing machine, sticking to the bottom and causing the stitches to become extroidinarily messy, To get around this, any edges that needed to be sewn I covered with tissue paper hastily ripped from christmas presents.

Aaargh, unfortunately I ran short on cash, so I couldn't afford to get my print made on Spoonflower. The semi-sheer silk that I needed to finish the skirt (none of their other options would drape or flow at all nicely) wound up being around 80$ for the two yards that I would need to make even a semi impressive gown.

So with a week left until the show, improvise.

These are the two scrap fabrics I was picking between. I really really really wanted this look to be a long maxi with a huge slit up the front a la Lanvin, but the silver silk cotton blend was just too heavy. It looked like a curtain.

Lunar Gala | Photoshoot

Alright this may be a bit preemptive, since I haven't posted any pictures of the actually line up here yet, but I'm currently thinking about how to shoot and document it. To that end, here are some editorial shots that I've been particularly attracted to of late that'll i'll be keeping in mind

Color Blocking

Composition

Final Lunar Gala Submission

Phew, my final rendition of the designs. I'm still not terribly  happy with the center 4 (they aren't as cohesive as I'd like them to be with the rest of the collection), but I think it will come together as I cement some of the algorithms I'm going to use in the design. (I already have an interesting photostitching idea cooking up for my last Computational Photography project I'm hoping to apply).

download the pdf here

Lunar Gala Designs

So here are my preliminary designs for my lunar gala line! I'm not actually positive on the final form yet, since I want to create the majority of the shapes using some kind of generative algorithm, (mostly so I can double up on the work for my capstone) but this is what I have in mind for the final product.

This is building off of the Reaction Diffusion Knit work and the generative Flocking Bangles I did for Golan Levin's class Interactive Art and Computational Design class. I feel that a fashion line most elegantly encapsulates most of the artistic work I've done in the past four years, while leaving a (somewhat daunting) amount of room for improvement/experimentation. Also, its a subject that truly makes me happy. Despite the large amount of information you're expected to ingest while participating in higher education, only an extremely small portion of it is interesting/inspiring/so intriguing you want to remember it and create more things from it. More often than not, we slog through our daily tasks, memorizing thick dusty books of information to be regurgitated on demand. Its much more interesting to be able to apply it to something you are passionate about and create something beautiful from it.

Anyway, I'll ramble on at length about this project in many more posts to come. Check out more/bigger/better pictures after the jump!

(Also, perlin noise logo generator? Probably most productive ten minutes I've ever had in my life)