Project Overview
Concept Overview
This is an analysis of how functional streetwear clothing, of middle-class families within a post-apocalyptic universe, differs (for each member) as the identity of each person is not identical. The environment, personal experience, age and sex will be my focus throughout this project as this will be the starting point in linking the family aesthetic through fashion.
During the course of my project, I will be experimenting how the shape, garments, textiles and fabrics and colour/tone emphasise the narratives of each family member’s design and position. The main angle of my concept will be to present a single-family unit and explore how their approach to garment design would be in a vastly different environment and situation, to Western civilisation. I am currently focussing on the post- apocalyptic setting opposed to the modern-day civilisation. This project highlights the psychological angle of fashion and how our environment and social familiarities shape of style; How would we express our identity if we existed in a different environment? Would the choice of colour influence the clothing we wear?
I intend to take influence from Goodman, as he suggests that “expression, like representation, is a mode of symbolisation; and a picture must stand for, symbolise, refer to, what it expresses.” In fashion, it is natural to want to understand the background meaning of a collection, although many are not intrigued enough to further analyse the deeper connection we may feel through personal expression and our emotions to this. We stray away from understanding a person’s personal situation when a fashion collection is ‘modelled’ by a ‘model’, whereas I intend to subconsciously create a connection with a range of ages and genders across family members, as my collection will be represented through specific and viable scenarios, where different family members will be wearing the garments. For example, Angela Luna’s refugee inspired collection ‘Adiff’ was a direct representation of how refugees are portrayed, and a main element of her collection is merging practically and survival with garments to help their struggle. Luna used the idea of this to exploit refugees in this collection as it was presented in modern civilisation, modelled by professional models that represented these refugees. These clothing designs that will ultimately improve refugees’ living conditions was an absolute ironic situation, as none of these garments were able to be represented by these refugees. I intend to use cinematically represent my collection on a family moulded by the very environment they are situated in.
The shaping, textiles and fabrics, and the colours used in the clothing “gives information of three kinds, (1) What the picture represents, (2) What properties it expresses, and (3) What feelings it expresses.” Goodman concluded that many individuals may experience an emotional bond with garments, that is cultivated through either or all these points. To agree with Goodman, these points irrevocably influence the emotional relationship between people and fashion. From this, he reinforces the notion that the tones and shades of the clothing and how they are presented in an environment builds the emotional connection from audiences. Though the visual aesthetic of my collection, I intend to create an emotional connection between different modern day western family demographics, through a mirror effect, as this would ultimately challenge audiences to understand the visual identity of families similar to their, experiencing very different environments and situations.
My aim for this collection is to build the emotional connection between persons and garments through a cinematic approach to fashion, as the functional elements and styles may differ through situations, environments and lifestyles. The “parallel universe trans- effect"- the idea of understanding a person's style through reversed roles with audiences.
Target Audience and Market Research
In the 21st century, gaming consoles and character customisation is at its peak from previous years. With high end and luxury fashion houses taking interest in virtual designs and solutions for character designs in games it is a trend which is imagined to spike massively in the coming years. There are “more than 1.2 billion people, over 15% of the global population, being video gamers” this has had a 3.6% growth in comparison to film and the entertainment industry.” The interest in technology, video consoles specifically are not going anywhere. Infact it is said to have a substantial growth in the decade. Front runners of generations which have grown up with alongside Millennials with technology include, “Generation Z as the generation of advanced technology, and they are not afraid to spend a couple of dollars in the gaming industry. In fact, Gen Z spends about 40 billion annually on skins and clothing for their video game avatars.” Millennials and Generation Z are my target market for digital fashion as these are the audiences which are really invested in heightening their virtual escapism lifestyle through their characters and fashion sense.
With Luxury brand Balenciaga creating limited edition skins in the gaming metaverse, the sales for the game in combination with this collection hit 5.1 billion USD in the first year of its release in 2020.
Families and Video Gaming
The post lockdown and covid era has been the forefront runner of family interaction through virtual experiences. “Family satisfaction mediated the relationship between video game co-playing and family closeness.” I am aiming to create a deeper family bond with clothing, not only between gaming aesthetics but through character representations and purpose of design.
The Statistics above in table 1 is extracted from a study conducted in 2007 where families were examined on the interaction, they have in gaming with each other. The age range is a key element in this study as the big gap between ages of players shows how extensive the field of interest in gaming and interacting with family members through this is. The average age of persons in combination with the total hours on average spent playing games are main market points which help identify the market gap for my concept being relative to a wide spectrum of audiences that are invested in games.
Table 2’s content reveals the data which follows research into how family's bond through gaming. My concept uses this area and the further psychological aspect of creating a relation between player (family member) and characters which can embody them using the ideology of the proteus effect to develop a mental connection between the character and the player.
In conclusion, I have been able to identify a new market which remains in the digital realm/metaverse which is at the front running of 'conceptual fashion’. The growth of technology and how families are able to experience and enjoy this together makes this a unique opportunity to explore the possibilities of fashion and character design. The proteus effect will be a focus in my project as this will initially draw audiences to the characters- How they are perceived and what draws us to their fashion and style characteristics. With a worldwide exponentially growing field of interest of all ages, genders, and personalities in the metaverse and gaming verse, this is the essential time to push the dynamic evolution of fashion across a range of audiences and new wave of persons which possibly do not consciously associate great interest with fashion in the physical world.
Evaluation
Throughout my journey to reach the final product, there were challenging hurdles to overcome and learn from which have made me a more fluent designer in the 3D workflow. At stages late in the pipeline being blindsided with file corruptions which resulted in losing valuable assets and scenes for my project and unexplained mis linked textures of garments, were just a couple of the setbacks I had to deal with and start from the beginning. Learning the hard way in how precise work can get disrupted by minute geometries within a scene, ironically enhanced my skills as I began to explore new avenues and different settings I had not previously explored.
Once I grasped an Indepth and knowledgeable work ethic to the software pipeline and understood the complexities of functions, I thought I would be able to backtrack and find the error which was continuously corrupting my files. Unable to find the corrupt piece/pieces amongst many elements within my project I resulted to individually exporting each object from across the array of software and importing them to rebuild my final scenes from scratch. I then revisited the steps of staging the lights, cameras, objects, avatars, and garments which created a timeline setback of 1week on a tightly fixed timeline. I concluded that I would not have enough time to consider great animation elements, and this initially would be an essential feature for my designs in this project. Now focussing on the renders of my remade scene, the tone, colours, and lighting would make or break of this project scene. This controlled the overall atmosphere of the collection and the realism of the display.
In the designing of my remaining 4 final garments, after completing the first two in the second term, it was challenging to tackle double the work with half the time as there was much to consider in the preparation and staging for our collections; the garments being only 50% of this process. Following this there were mathematical and technological aspects to this course which I did not foresee beyond the make of the garments but through building knowledge within 3d spaces I was able to understand the key processes and functions. Although all the outfits are a reflection of each individual avatar and their portrayed personality, it was testing to create cohesion amongst a family unit without creating repetitive design features. Through pattern cutting within the physical world, I had advanced my knowledge and accomplished the manoeuvre of importing 2d designs into 3d software space, to further develop a garment in the metaverse. The centre pieces of my collection and the garments which bond this collection together is the presence of ‘puffer styled’ clothing. The downs jacket properties within each outfit in my collection is the key component which creates the strongest connection between outfits. I explored the idea of what a puffer jacket is commonly visualised as and conceptualised this in each look through varies styles and draping of the fuller look and characteristics of this garment.
The psychological aspect of changing the colours of my initial garments from term 2 has come from my further research that colours such as red and black are notably associated with thoughts of ‘danger’, ‘passion’ and ’love’ These colours have significant meaning within my scenes as it builds on the meaning of the collection’s as it “gives information of three kinds, (1) What the picture represents, (2) What properties it expresses, and (3) What feelings it expresses.” - as Goodman concludes that how we interpret information from a scene(picture) is greatly influenced by the colours associated within it. The tone of my collection is built on the dark but bonded family ties within a crumbling environment and how they can be seen as being strong and close to enable their survival.
In conclusion, the building of my collection and scene was an invaluable learning experience as I gained knowledge in multiple sectors and became a stronger designer. Having to mould into new roles such as seamstress, creative director, textile designer, 3dmodeler and game concept designer I gained so much knowledge and experience in becoming a well-rounded concept designer. Through the development of my design skills, I have successfully absorbed the processes of working concurrently in both 2d and 3d and physical and virtual media. An essential feature to my collection which would never be achievable in the physical world is the concept story – creating a universe specifically for my idea and designs and being able to visualise the necessary environment and life of my garments and their backstory’s purpose. With extensive losses of work, impacted the outcome of my collection as I was forcefully driven to explore and revise details of the project which may have been overlooked and overall may have pushed the development of my outcome as best possible.
Bibliography
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Fibre2fashion.com. 2022. Fashion's Growth in the World of Online Gaming. [online] Available at: <https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/9316/fashion-s-growth-in-the-world-of-online-gaming> [Accessed 20 August 2022].
Wang, B., Taylor, L. and Son, q., 2018. Families that play together stay together: Investigating family bonding through video games. [online] Journals.sagepub. Available at: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444818767667> [Accessed 21 August 2022].
Statista. 2022. Simulation Games - Worldwide | Statista Market Forecast. [online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/app/games/simulation-games/worldwide#revenue> [Accessed 21 August 2022].