As an apparel design major, I’ve intuitively tapped into my creative energy through a
process that includes garment making. For the final project, I’ve decided to encourage my
exploration with the way the human form intersects not only with the ideas that I’ve learned in this course, but also with my own personal experiences as a woman and a person of color. I’ve constructed a piece that speaks to my feminine energy, which is an aspect of my identity that I have denied throughout my childhood due to the stereotypical beliefs set in regards to both my gender and racial background. This piece is a representation about the way I have reclaimed the repressed parts of my identity from the past by dismantling those negative attributes on my own terms. Throughout this process I took characteristics built within society that I heavily disliked being both a minority and a woman by making a garment that I love switching the narrative that I was told from a young age.
This garment is just one piece I made that is apart of my senior thesis, which I found also
speaks to the ideas discussed throughout multicultural psychology pretty seamlessly. Taking
concepts related to race and gender issues that are still being perpetuated today, I designed a top using fabric manipulations inspired from 18th and 19th century womenswear/intimates. I specifically used a material where the wearer does not feel restricted while also experimenting with negative and open spaces.
