Final Project: Femininity in Male's Fashion

Process:

    I choose silk for the top part, chiffon and polyester for the bottom part to make this vest. The back side of silk is both smooth and gorgeous while not being as shiny as it's front side, so I think it would match my topic about feminine male. I choose polyester for the bottom part was because it melts beautifully while I tried to burn it, and the fabric became quite hard and stable in shape after burning, which really contrast with the soft chiffon.

First I did the burning experiment 

 Cotton

 Thick cotton

 Thin Polyester

  Silk

 Thick polyester (This is the one that I finally choose to use.)

  After that I make the pattern of the vest by myself.

And sew the pieces together to finish the top part.

And then I add buttons on the top part. Since it's a vest for male, the buttons are on the right hand side of the vest.

And I burn the edges of the bottom part, and sew the polyester piece with the chiffon piece.

Finaly I sew the top part and the bottom part together.

Concept photos:

      My topic for this garment is femininity in male’s fashion. I realized that the feminine elements in male’s clothing do not only exist in the modern fashion: it had occurred since middle century. There are lots of portraits that could use as references to proof what men in the middle centuries wore, and I think the images of men on those portraits are very significant with their long hairs, floor-length cloaks, shapely legs, gorgeous details on sleeves and collars and beautiful embroideries on the clothing. These images of men would definitely be viewed as examples of feminine male in present. However, people at the time didn’t think those clothes were feminine, they considered those clothing masculine and were typically for male since those clothing had a lots of difference with female’s clothing at the time. For me it’s very interesting to see that what was considered as masculine in the past is considered as feminine right now, I think this transition really explains the idea that “gender is constructed by society.” 

     For the final project, I create a halter vest to show my idea about femininity in male’s fashion. Vest in the past was absolutely for male only, but it is a more androgynous clothing that could wear by both male and female right now, that’s why I think it would be a nice style of cloth to show my concept. I chose pearl button for the vest and use silver threads to finish the edges, which was revealing the middle century style. For the bottom part I choose two fabric, one is polyester and the other is chiffon. I burned the edges of the polyester layer, it became quite hard and crisp after burning, which contrast with the soft chiffon. The overall shape of the vest exaggerate the silhouette of human body and create a curvy and feminine feeling. I want to make the cloth that people would think it’s different from the other male clothing and would like to wear it to a more formal place and occasion because that’s what I found in my research about femininity in male’s fashion: men who wear feminine clothes are looking for a more fashionable and beautiful style that could make them different and stylized.

Finished piece

Final Project Progress

Experiment on burning fabric

    I finally decided to burn the edge of the fabric for my final piece, so I got several different fabrics to experiment with burning.

1. I think this one is cotton. It's very easy to burn, however, after burning it, the edge became very crisp and thin and easy to fall apart, so I might not going to use it for my final piece because it would be very hard for me to not to destroy it while I am working. 

2. This one is actually my favorite one although I don't really know what it is. This fabric doesn't burn, it melts in a beautiful way. However I don't really like the color of this fabric, I think it's too white. So if  I am going to use it for my final piece, I might need to search for this kind of fabric in another color like ivory, beige or off white.

3. This fabric is silk. I think it is hard to burn it, and burning doesn't really leave lot's of effect on it. And also the fabric is a little bit too hard.

4. This fabric is quite similar to the second one, it melts when I burned it. I think it doens't look as nice as the second one, but if I couln't find the second type of fabric in the color that I want, I might consider about this one. 

5.  I nearly burned my dorm while I was trying to burn it.. 

Silhouette Study Garment

     I printed out the pattern of the vest and cut the pieces out on muslin, then I found out that the pattern doesn't really working: it has a extra piece on the pattern that doesn't make sense, and the shape of the vest becomes weird after adding that piece. So I decided to delete that piece. While I was sewing the pattern together, I change the pattern a little bit to make the waist even thinner, and I add two long pieces at the bottom of the vest. However the pattern of the long pieces and the fabric doesn't work as I thought, I expected a more natural and soft flow and it didn't come out that way. I am still considering to make a vest for my final project, however I would more tend to design the pattern by myself.

silhouette research

    I choose a pattern of a vest. Because while I am searching for the history of femininity in male's fashion, I found a lot of feminine factors in the mid-century male's clothing and I think vest is a important element in the mid-century fashion for men. In order to make the vest more feminine and relates more to my topic, I would make the waist even thiner, and then I would at a longer piece on the bottom of the vest because people would generally consider that female clothing fits the natural line of body more and is more curvy in design. So I narrow the waist down to exaggerate the line of body. 

Pattern Collection Swatch Book

                        

                     

    My pattern swatch talks about the idea of femininity in male's fashion. My basic motif is transformed from a tick mark: the left part of the tick is sharp and hard, while the right part of the tick is more curvy and has more volume; the angle of the tick is a sharp acute angle while the interior angle is a soft curve. This motif basically contains my concept of femininity in male's fashion--it has straight lines and sharp angles while also contains curves, which represents that femininity can also take place in male's fashion. I choose  black, white, sax, navy, dark blue, pink, ivory and light brown for my color swatches. Most of the colors that I chose are cool colors, so I choose pink, which is a very warm and feminine color to balance my color swatch. My plane patterns basically convey the idea of combining straight lines and curves. Since this project requires two color variations of each pattern, I made most of the patterns with one color variation with more warm colors and the other color variation with more cool colors. 

    I found it quite difficult to combine the pink color in patterns, because it would be easy to be too feminine for male. So I am trying to make a balance between the pink color and the other colors. And also, while I was researching for historical information for this project, I realized that my assumption of the development of femininity in male's fashion was totally wrong. At the very beginning of the project, I thought that in the past people should be more conserve about sexual identity and would more likely to connect femininity with female rather than men. And I assumed that relating femininity with men was the thing that occurs in modern days, which people are more open-minded about sexual identity and sexual equality. With my research for this swatch book, I found out that there are a lot of feminine factors in the mid-century european male's clothes and hair styles, and there are always some feminine factors in male’s fashion. This is really not what I've expected. Finally I get my inspiration for my garment designs from the mid-century european male's clothes which I think represents the essence of femininity in male's fashion. I feel I really learn a lot in the process of making this book.