Exposing the unseen: Delicate identities from history applied to modern fashion collection
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2021
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Master’s Programme in Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design
Language
en
Pages
96
Series
Abstract
The general conception of genderless clothing has demonstrated the fluidity of dressing norms and has enhanced the use of diverse materials in attire. However, the fashion industry is still subconsciously disregarding third binaries by cultivating traditional gender norms in its choice of silhouettes and materials. For this reason, these binaries become unseen. This thesis explore these identities which exist between primary gender roles in textile design and fashion collection. Specifically, it examines how sexuality bears a vital role in the existentialism of identity. It casts patterns of dressing codes and defines what variety of performance remains unseen. The present work investigates the concepts of delicate and queer and communicates these terms through performance, identity, and the virtues of textile development. The study exemplifies how history relates to creating a fashion collection and how experimental textile design connects the modern vision of characters and their possible expression of style into an unseen interpretation of delicate attire. The background of this study relies on fashion history and implicates queer identities in three characters. Furthermore, it assembles when social relations have formulated body and skin exposure throughout the history of menswear. The first character, Endymion, exemplifies queer personalities in Neoclassicism paintings. Following that, the second character Oscar Wilde introduces gestures, class, style, and sex as part of identity. The third character Fernando outlines the history based on past characters, and his photographs have been used as an element of visual reference of the collection's productive method. The concept of delicacy is further manipulated in the practical work of the thesis experimental textile design, in which the focus is on light-weight knitwear. As a contrast to the exquisite knitwear, woven fabric and silkscreen printing techniques are used. The material development is the midpoint of the design process and illustrates a relation with the designer's critical understanding of delicate attire and its connection to gendered recognition. It researches whether the fashion practice can designate the delicate binary position of unseen material identity. Additionally, it argues that queer identities can broaden the meanings of male and nonbinary fashion. The present thesis pursues a nonbinary identity that speaks for sensuality, luxurious materials, and harmony in silhouette, textiles, and how skin might become exposed within situated body practice. Thus, this thesis contributes to deconstructing male archetypes' perception and bringing it to genderless ideology in silhouette and material features. It exposes the unseen: both in historical context, artistic creation, and in designer himself.Description
Supervisor
Salolainen, MaaritThesis advisor
Leppisaari, Anna-MariPeltonen, Elina
Keywords
delicacy, gender, experimental textile design, knitwear, woven fabrics, identity