the ugliest shirt you've ever loved.

For the last five weeks, I have devoted countless hours drafting, cutting, measuring, pinning, sewing, seam-ripping, sewing again, pressing, adjusting, problem solving, and eventually presenting one of the ugliest shirts I have ever encountered. As I was working on it, my roommates sat idly by watching as every component that I added to the shirt made it even more bazar.  I have to give it to them though, they still remained positive about the completed project and showered me with kind compliments even after I kept them up all night with the obnoxious noise of my sewing machine and burned their eyeballs with my stripes, plaids, frills and ribbons. Thanks dudes.

So here's how it went down.

The assignment: rethink and redesign the classic shirt. 

The theme : pick a theme and let it evolve and organically incorporate other themes to create something new and original.

The Rules : the majority of the shirt must be constructed from a striped cotton. Other patterns and solids may be used but only as additions to the stripe. The shirt must also be a SHIRT and not a blouse (meaning buttons down the front as opposed to down the back or not at all). 

The final presentation : 10 illustrations of the entire collection including the shirt, a mood board (inspiration board), a fabric board comprised of all the fabrics used in the collection, a flat of the finished shirt, and the finished shirt. 

My theme started as victorian. Just your plain old victorian shirt. Standard theme, no? Well... as instructed, this theme evolved and organically incorporated other themes. Victorian turned into victorian-motorcycle-country-saloon girl. Yeah, quite the mouthful. What does a victorian-motorcycle-country-saloon girl look like, you might ask? Well let me show you.

Here are my 10 illustrations depicting my final collection.

As you can see, the victorian shirt completely transformed and was paired with some patent leather pants and overalls to bring in the motorcycle and country elements making this very Beyonce "Bow Down" look, as one of my peers put it. The first shirt in this collection is the shirt that I actually went on to create. At the beginning of the project, I drew 50 croquis and proposed them to my professor. Out of those FIFTY designs, he chose that one. I think maybe because it might've been one of the more challenging ones from a pattern-making/design standpoint. Nevertheless, it would have been more ideal to choose one of the shirts that I would actually incorporate into my wardrobe unlike this bazaro ribbon explosion... Oh well. C'est la vie.

These illustrations, paired with my mood board and my fabric board, created a three-panel presentation board. I used the excess fabric left over and some other crafty things I've collected in my time as an art student to bring it all together. We were required to include some of our process work which is why I included my two sketchbooks of research, inspiration, and croquis.

  

Since coming to the fashion design program, I have been introduced to technical flats which I have never been required to do before. It was a real struggle at first to figure out how the heck to draw a shirt in Adobe Illustrator and have the proportions correct and everything. Basically a technical flat is what you send to the manufacturer so it needs to be coherent and correct if you want to get the right shirt made and sent back. If there is even one mistake, you could receive a completely different shirt from the manufacturer and then you're screwed. So precision is key! I'm still just getting the hang of this but this is the flat I whipped up for my shirt.

And lastly, the finished shirt.

**The sleeve shoulders are puffier when arms are in them.

I was a little nervous to present this project on the last day of class. I was convinced my professors and peers would be thinking to themselves "what the…." and conjure up some horrid story of my being the next Betsy Johnson… However, my teacher seemed to flip that apprehension on it's side. When he saw my shirt he fell absolutely in love with it and went on a 20 minute rant about this generation of Parsons students being "hyper chic" and serious designing all androgynous, avante garde, oversized, no colour, clean line, boring clothing. He said "finally someone who can take a damn risk!" He applauded my experimentation and fearlessness (little did he know I was internally freaking out) and mentioned that it IS an ugly shirt, but the fact that it's so well made makes it hard to hate. He went on to talk about the need to be tacky and crazy in fashion school because as soon as you get into the industry, you're going to have someone telling you what to do and the opportunity to explore will have evaporated (until you have complete creative control of a company which is … in the very distant future … if at all). 

All in all, this project was a roller coaster of emotions, but well worth the ride. As my prof put it, I've created "the ugliest shirt you've ever loved." Not a bad title if you ask me.