With a Bang

It’s how many people believe things began and how I want to end my five years of college.

Likewise, it’s also the way ideas and thoughts enter my mind. They’re loud and obtrusive and more often than not, they arrive at the most inconvenient of times. At 3AM…in the shower…on the toilet…the summer before graduation when I had finally decided on a concept for my Senior Capstone. That’s right, I had a perfectly good concept that was well thought out and meaningful and excited me until an idea came rocketing from the far end of nowhere and screamed “CANNONBALL!” before crash landing in a fiery inferno.

For those of you who have no clue who I am, my name is Meaghan G. Newhouse and I am currently a senior in the Fashion Studies program at Kendall College of Art and Design (with a minor in metalsmithing and jewellery design). This semester I conclude my five years of school with a collection that will put on display a culmination of everything I’ve learned.

ME AND MY FAVE HUMAN taken by Stephanie Wood

The idea that crash landed and left a burning crater in my mind and reduced my original concept to ashes took inspiration from my Study Abroad in Florence, Italy about two summers ago. While I did have to attend classes each week and keep up with my work, there were also days where I was free to wander the city as I pleased. There were so many amazing things to see and hear and smell, from the soaring peaks of the cathedrals to the hole-in-the-wall shops that were hidden away in mazes of streets and that never seemed to open at the same time every day.

Panoramic view of Florence from a lookout on the hills taken by me

But what made me stop and think was the realization that I stood in a city that was thousands of years old – cracked cobblestone streets, sun-kissed buildings, and steps worn down in the middle from endless foot traffic – and yet bright neon signs clung to the buildings like ivy. An H&M sign hung over a decrepit old building with mismatched pillars and a contemporary storefront patchworked on to its crumbling face. A hundred-year-old tailors shop sat sandwiched between a record shop and a gelato shop all buried under cold scaffolding bearing a big, bright advertisement about the latest and greatest product from Apple. Modern-day trappings and conveniences jigsawed into the weathered old bones of the past. The idea that the present and incoming future was merely a conglomeration of pieces from the old with ideas of the new made my fingers tingle and my mind race. An ever-shifting, ever advancing timeline that builds on the shoulders of the past.

I remember when I was young staying up late on Friday nights to watch old movies where time travel was real and the future was this perfect ideal, and I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, where the future was high above the sky, cars flew like aeroplanes, and robots were as common as people. I remember wondering if that's what our future would look like, a complete divergence from what life was like then.

Obviously, we don't have flying cars or live in the skies or have zany robots who act more human than machines, and we most certainly do not have the perfect shiny society portrayed in films and morning cartoons. Even in the present day, films and media often present a radical view of what the far off future is going to look like. It's either dark and gritty like the movie Blade Runner or some perfect Utopia that isn't actually so perfect behind the scenes.

Everyone has a vision of what the future looks like and this one is mine.

My collection (still untitled at this point in time) explores my own personal vision of the future, both culturally and in fashion. It explores the contrast of the past, present, and future and how they intertwine to create something strikingly new. Classic styles fitted with contemporary colours and trends overlaid with tendrils of the future. I knew I wanted to create something no one had ever seen before, but still had that sense of familiarity. 

I also knew that I wanted to incorporate technology as part of my collection. Every time I had tried to approach it in the past it seemed so advanced and complicated. Math and science had never been easy for me in high school, so as far as I was concerned, the whole technology aspect was untouchable for me. Then about a year and a half ago, I took a wearable tech class out of pure curiosity, just to see if I could do it. I found that I loved it and began to delve into things that I had never considered before. Tech programming and digital modelling and 3D printing, oh my! The more I learned, the more I realized that it wasn't as scary and complicated as I had first thought. 

So now I had a concept and designs were beginning to form in my head. It was time to face the one part of the design process that still terrifies me to this day.

Picking a colour palette.

I crave colour. So I knew that for my collection I wanted to do away with the gritty and the minimalistic monochrome in favour of bold colours and in your face patterns. My original mood board consisted primarily of red and blue with the intention of using the two colours to visually emphasize the contrasts in my collection. 

But the more I looked at it, the more it felt like there was something that I was missing. There was too much red and every time I imagined my designs, they were almost entirely blue. I was nearing utter frustration when one day I dropped my coat on a pile of fabric and fringe that I knew I was going to use in my collection. When I later went to pick up my jacket, my eye shaped pin fell off on to the pile and I realized that the colours on my pin matched the colours in my fabrics. It was so satisfying to look at and I knew at that moment that I had just stumbled across my colour palette (Plus, I had already decided to use an eye motif in my collection, so bonus!)

Well, that's all I have for you this week. Thanks for reading and remember to keep checking back as there will be new updates every week.

Salut!