By Ilayda Celik-Reese

This series is a depiction of traditional belly dance and belly dance wear in the context of modern society. In his piece ​”The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” Walter Benjamin states that ​”the uniqueness of a work of art is identical to its embeddedness in the context of tradition.”​ Although the true origin of the dance is unknown, researchers have traced it back to both Egypt and Turkey, which is where the artist’s family is from. The artist’s family are in fact the subjects of this series, along with other members of the Fort Lauderdale Turkish Association and the artist herself. The subjects have been captured in the midst of a celebratory dance, in which some of them adorned themselves with handkerchiefs and coin skirts, while the majority dance without such decorations. The dance is the most significant part of the tradition, especially in this modern era, thus, most non-professionals dance without the proper adornments.

The history of belly dance or Rakkas, as it is called in Turkish, is mainly that of legend. In Andrea Deagon’s piece for ​Habibi Magazine​ she discusses the origins of belly dance in the Middle East.​ ​Deagon asserts that the history is quite muddled and mainly that of legend, as many have said it originated in the harems of sultans, others believe it was a birthing ritual or a dance for the goddess Isis. Later in his piece, Benjamin asserts that “​The unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art has always had its basis in ritual.” ​As belly dancing has come into the modern era it has lost some of its traditional formal aspects but has remained significant as a symbol of Middle Eastern culture, which is why it is often fetishized by western cultures. Belly dance, in the modern Western world, is most often treated as a white woman’s weekend hobby or something that would be shown at a Middle Eastern restaurant. Thus, in this piece the author sought to demonstrate what the dance means to the people who have known the dances since they could walk.

The primary purpose of traditional belly dance attire was to emphasize the movement of the body. The most well-known garment of the tradition is the “Bedlah,” which is the two-piece decorated bra and skirt set, often accompanied by a veil or handkerchief. The Bedlah is always adorned with some sort of small details that show movement, ranging from coins to small hand-knit pieces. This costume is the origin of the coin skirt. As time passed and belly dance became less formal, so did the costumes. Thus, the Bedlah eventually was toned down into just a hip scarf adorned with coins and a handkerchief if the dancer chooses.

The artist’s choice in this topic was influenced by her discovery of Youssef Nabil’s video art piece which centers on Salma Hayek as a belly dancer. In finding this work of art, the artist realized a whole new world had opened up for belly dance. Since the tradition had become established as an icon of Middle Eastern culture, it now had the opportunity to achieve new meanings through its incorporation into modern art. Thus, the artist’s exploration into this subject was not only to depict the historical evolution of the belly dance tradition, but also to explore potential future meanings of belly dance.

By Frances Lu

During my research on the topic of the kimono, I was amazed by many characteristics of thekimono that distinguish it from the western fashion system which has dominated the fashion world for a long time. I focused on the idea in fashion scholar Sheila Cliffe’s “The Contemporary Kimono” that the kimono is a loose garment shaped by the body itself and a belt called an obi during the process of dressing. Instead of designers making a fitted garment and figuring out all the construction details, the kimono gets people more involved with the garment by having it wrapped around the body and tightened with the obi around the waist to give it a different look.

According to what Joanne Entwistle says in her article “Fashion and the Fleshy Body: Dress as Embodied Practice”, dress meditates the experience of self. In my opinion, this process of dressing makes people more body conscious and therefore become more sensible about the self. I took this concept further and designed some loose garments that can be shaped using buttons, belt and zippers, which not only allows people’s interaction with the garment but also gives space for their creativity. As a result, a single garment can be worn in many different ways, reducing the need to buy more clothes, which is a transformation of the kimono’s ecological concept of using zero-waste pattern into the modern day.

Nowadays, the trending fast fashion industry sells clothes that match with anything and suits most daily occasions so that people don’t have to think about what they are wearing, they can just put it on and be ready. However, by focusing on this concept of a closer relationship between people and their clothes and involving them in part of the design, it helps them to review themselves every time they put on a garment and get a better sense of self. Therefore, instead of making a traditional kimono, I applied my concept to more modern looks. I decided to construct a simple loose dress that has zippers on the side seams, so when the zippers close, it becomes a fitted dress. It also has many buttons and buttonholes from the waist down to provide several ways the garment can be shaped. I used traditional kimono fabric on the inside of the dress so that it shows when the buttons pull up the lower part of the dress.

Apart from the garment itself, I also planned a short slow-motion video of the process of someone actually wearing the garment to more clearly demonstrate my concept. In the process of implementing my plan, I changed my design along the way. For example, because there are so many constructions going on at the lower half of the dress, I kept the rest simple without zipper or waistband in the original plan. The video turned out to be too long to demonstrate my concept so I changed it to photo shoots of different ways to wear the garment.

By Janine Holmes

My final project explores the visual and literal history of the Scottish Highlander kilt. I have chosen to focus on the versatility of the kilt, specifically on its cultural and military purposes. My garment will serve as visual storytelling of the kilt. Kilts have been worn by Highlanders for hundreds of years. They are typically associated with the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745 against the English monarchy because they were banned almost immediately after, according to the Berg Companion to Fashion by Valerie Steele. However, England allowed kilts to remain a part of the Scottish military uniform. The kilt never recovered its daily use, despite the ban being repealed years later. According to Malcolm Chapman’s Freezing the Frame, kilts and the Scots themselves were viewed as savage and a threat to the British crown until King George IV visited in the early 19th century. Queen Victoria I’s visit later on also helped to popularize the tartans kilts are made from.

I am applying Barthes’ theories of semiotics to my project and focusing on the kilt as both a military uniform and as an everyday object. Barthes discusses the function of symbols and that everything can send messages to the viewer. The English viewed the kilt as a form of Scottish defiance and as a nuisance, while the Scottish viewed it as a symbol of national pride. According to Thomas Abler’s Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress, Scottish soldiers wore kilts more adapted to warfare with a khaki apron in the front. Kilts were officially worn in battle up until World War I, but unofficially worn by a small number of soldiers during World War II. Abler also states that German soldiers during World War I nicknamed Scottish soldiers “the ladies from Hell” due to wearing the kilt. My garment should illustrate the pride, function, and history of the kilt.

I have found a double-faced olive and red twill polyester fabric and Clan MacLeod tartan that I am using for the construction of my kilt. The double-faced fabric reminds me of military-grade fabric, which represents the kilt being a military symbol for both the Scottish and the British. The thick green exterior is commonly associated with having an “army” look, both in the modern and historic sense. The red underneath is rebellious and bold, which is how England symbolized Scotland after the Jacobite rebellion. Clan MacLeod tartan is a traditional fabric that illustrates part of the kilt’s history. I am adding pleats of various widths to the back, with one large box pleat in the center back. Traditionally, the back of a kilt is always pleated while the front is flat. I am mostly following this tradition except for the fact that my kilt is only partially pleated in the back to make it more functional and militaristic. I am keeping the selvage exposed on the top right edge of the kilt to show the red fabric that it is layered over. The waistband of the kilt is made from a torn selvage of Blackwatch tartan, which was named after a Highlander militia. I have attached Clan MacLeod tartan to the left front of the kilt to break the uniform olive color and add color. Instead of using a kilt pin, I have attached strips of Clan MacLeod tartan that keep the kilt fastened. I left the hem of the kilt unfinished to show the kilt’s ability to stay functional despite any damage it might suffer during war. I added a military-style pocket with a flap with a Clan MacLeod tartan border, which is my variation of the sporran bag that was worn with the kilt. The pleated Blackwatch tartan is my interpretation of ornamental fur on the sporran.

I added an embroidered Jacobite rose as a nod to the Scottish rebellion. I draped Blackwatch tartan on the back of the fabric to represent the traditional “plaid”, or shawl of tartan worn over the shoulders. One aspect of construction I struggled with was making the inside red polyester fabric stay pleated, so I added topstitching to keep the pleats’ form. I topstitched a box over the large box pleat in the back. A design difficulty I faced was combining cultural storytelling and military function. The pocket I added in the front both adds to the military aesthetic while also being a modern take on the traditional sporran. The combination of my fabrics rather than just using tartan or the polyester helped to blend these two aspects of the kilt.

By Gray Stearns

For nearly 100 years Dickies as a brand and workwear more generally have been focused almost entirely on functionality. Dickies, in particular, has gone through many stages of appropriation and re-appropriation over the years and have been claimed by various subcultures. But the way they are being worn today, in mainstream fashion, even being sold in urban outfitters, couldn’t be further from their original purpose. Barthes argues that clothing has always been a symbol, for age, profession, marital status, and that “clothing ends up absorbing the man completely”. But in today’s fashion climate everything has been flipped on its head and there’s no better example than that of the appropriation of workwear.

The wearing of working clothing through the lens of fashion and expression has become much more popular in recent years. This shift may not have a defined reason or explanation but it may encompass new attitudes towards work and leisure and the way they interact with each other in the modern world. “Mass production of clothing, urbanization, and more recently, new attitudes to work and leisure, money, and credit, may change not only our clothing but the identities they represent.”(Burman, Barbara. “Working-Class Dress.”)

Workwear as a trend has seen art school kids, like myself, Kanye West in the same Carharrt jacket as the average construction worker. I would argue the art school kids and Kanye are doing what could be seen as the opposite of the physical labor that these garments were intended for. That being said, for my final garment, I have taken a fresh pair of dickies and made them more suitable for the modern wearer, specifically to better represent the reasons that people like myself are now wearing them.

My interest was sparked when I saw a man on the subway the other day wearing a Carhartt jacket and dickies caked in layers of paint. But this is not for fashion obviously, each stroke or drop of paint on his jacket, pants, and boots happened organically, just from doing his job day after day. There is something about it that feels so effortless and it would be nearly impossible to create without it looking too artificial. Me and that guy on the subway live very different lives but wear the same pants, and we both paint, but for different reasons. So this inspired me to make my version of those paint covered pants that represents my everyday lifestyle.

Every time that I sit down to paint I use an old white t shirt that I wipe my brushes on to get off the excess paint. While doing so I am constantly rotating the shirt around, naturally creating concentrated areas of paint that have an organic stroke pattern to them, and there always seems to be balance and movement within the design that I accidentally make. I used that same method to create a similar pattern on my pair of Dickies. I selected a muted color palette of nudes, blues, and greys because I didn’t want the paint to stand out from afar and those colors blend in well with the natural tone of the pants.

By Urey Wang

“If I had a flower for every time thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever,” Alfred Tennyson once said. Love is hard to define and find but it seems like everyone is still seeking for it. Love happens suddenly and unpredictably. Someone falls in love, then they get married. Wedding rituals and dresses are a dominant part of our cultural understanding of marriage. That is why I chose bridal dresses as my research topic. I want to figure out the connection and differences in bridal dresses across worldwide cultures.

I searched some scholarly sources includes books and academic journals, as well as primary sources from 1940s fashion designers and writers. According to Michelle Nordtorp-Madson historian, in her book Wedding Costume, the traditional wedding culture usually includes dresses, families, rituals, and other decorations. Especially in a Western wedding, the bride usually dresses in white or off-white, covered with a little piece of tulle, carrying flowers and guided by her father (Nordtorp-Madson, 2010). The large silhouette with pure white or off-white color was the most visible trait for a classic western bridal dress. However, Eastern wedding dresses have something special that differentiates them from Western bridal dresses. Usually, traditional Eastern manufacturers add embroidery, such as the phoenix – which represents happiness, wealth, safety and courage – and other interesting symbolic patterns. The buttons they utilized were usually frog buttons with the Chinese knot symbolize happiness and luck.

According to Richard Sennett in his book The Craftsman, the professional techniques that craftsmen keep and pass to the next generation are very precious and rare. The frog buttons are a kind of traditional techniques that Chinese craftsmen used to produce to symbolize Chinese culture. After I collected this information, I started to draw design sketches of my final garment. I combined the large silhouette of Western wedding dresses and the frog buttons of traditional Chinese bridal dresses because I personally like the cultural collision of classic designs in different cultures. Also, another drawing from my sketches is a combination of the large silhouette with a piece of embroidery in front of the dress. I chose the first drawing as my final garment because the frog buttons are simple but elegant and more classic. I would like to use pure white silk as the two sides of the back panel while I will tulle or organza as the connection between the two sides. The frog buttons as the closure will be functional for connecting the tulle with the silk part. I wanted to do a whole garment but I decided to focus on the bodice and drape the large silhouette for impact.

From my personal perspective, the wedding dress as a symbol of pure and immortal love really opens my imagination to limitless possibilities. The cultural collision around the world will bring innovative and creative energy to the fashion world.

By Ash Prather

The jumpsuit is an important garment in the evolution of both unisex and youth culture. Not only was it used during World War II to allow women to participate in the workforce, but it was also redesigned to accommodate the Space Age fashion in the 1960s. For my final project, I hope to bring to light the history that the jumpsuit contains through the silkscreen artwork that I have created.

According to fashion scholar, Jo Jenkinson, unisex has been a conduit for radical change since World War II. When men went to the front lines, American women joined the workforce en masse for the first time. However, the existing style for feminine clothing–long, flowy dresses–would result in numerous accidents in factories. Changes had to be made.

In 1942, designer Vera Maxwell was commissioned by Allis Chalmers and Sperry Gyroscope Co. to design a jumpsuit for female factory workers (as depicted in the famous Rosie the Riveter poster). Later, around 1957, silver metallic fabric, make-up, and jewelry became the staple for a new movement, Space Age fashion. At this time, the jumpsuit was also used because of its heavy resemblance to the suits worn by astronauts. These are both perfect examples of what Anne Hollander meant in her book Seeing Through Clothes when stating “the style is what combines the clothes and the body into the accepted contemporary look.” In the 1940s, the accepted look slowly became women wearing clothes that weren’t long and flowy. The style of the jumpsuit created an acceptable new look for women, as Hollander previously stated. During the Space Age, the new metallic look merged the innovative stages of NASA/Space Race with that of the fashion world. For my final project, my main goal is to encapsulate visuals from these two periods of time, as well as the information I discovered in my research.

When I first began this project, I was unsure of how to approach the final piece. I didn’t know if the best plan was written and informative, visual, or a combination of the three. It seemed counterintuitive to disregard the information I found entirely by creating a full jumpsuit, or some form of miniature variant. So, after painstakingly changing my idea, my conclusion was to incorporate my silkscreen class knowledge with the visual and descriptive knowledge on the jumpsuit.

In terms of execution, I found images related to the jumpsuit from World War II and the Space Age, inverting them, layered in text about the jumpsuit, and printed the result on paper using a silkscreen technique. My goal is to give the viewer a deeper insight into the garment’s history. The panels/images I selected were based around major points in the jumpsuits’ history, and overall facts that stood out to me during the research part of my project. This final product will be an accordion print on one sheet of Arches 88 paper, folded it in a way that reveals one image at a time. (This idea could further develop to be a sequence or storyline in terms of the jumpsuits’ history). If opening the accordion, and looking from left to right, the viewer can experience a visual timeline of the jumpsuits’ development.

A major challenge I had when doing the first couple passes in silkscreen was that the text was somewhat unreadable, as there was more ink going through the screen than I wanted. To fix this problem, I simply used a less dense squeegee when putting the ink through the screen, and doing the print on newsprint until the amount of ink and the overall image I wanted was at its most refined. In terms of a design challenge I had to face, my main struggle was deciding what aspects of the jumpsuits history to convey, and the best medium I felt to convey it. In order to solve this problem, I looked at the resources given to me. My decision to use silkscreen to convey the depth of the jumpsuit was mainly based on the eye-catching value the technique can convey. Through distortions of photographs and scans related to the jumpsuit, silkscreen can draw the viewer in, and raise questions about what is being shown. My main focus was to bring attention to my piece, and enlight the viewer on what elements of my garment I discovered through research.