final photos

changes

        Joining the design process after the initial designing, I worked to redesign costumes for Maya, Skylar and Ryu, as well as to create an initial design based off a reference photo for both Billy Boy Bill and Paulina. As I joined the design process after the initial designs concept had been created, I worked under the restrictions of a jewel tones color scheme and a stylized historic concept which aimed to accentuate Edwardian elements in each character’s clothing. Additionally, I was asked to make the characters look more “roughed up” and less “trendy” given the characters poverty. This was made difficult for my assigned characters as they were poor and required excess mobility in their costumes due to choreography, meaning many of the extravagant fashion styles were difficult to incorporate. 

As the design process continued, the concept for the poor strayed from stylized historic and aimed to place a greater emphasis on highlighting the previous lives of the characters before the Stink Years.  In order to achieve a poorer look for each of the characters, I hand-made clothing pieces to convey the poor’s lack of resources or ability to buy new clothes, and crocheted fishnet pieces to show exaggerated hole-filled clothing. Throughout the processes I changed items of clothing to match the fabrics that required less water and also included duller, darker shades of the provided color pallet to convey the rebels grimy living conditions.

Billy Boy Bill’s design remained similar to the initial reference photos given. In collaboration with Karen, I decided to highlight the backstory of a man fallen from wealth after the stink years by using a traditionally wealthy silhouette created with scraps of other fabrics in dull, dirtied colors. Further, I aimed to emphasize Billy Boy Bill's struggle to cling onto his past wealth despite the poor’s lack of resources or ability to buy new clothes by using various shades of dull green, a color commonly associated with wealth that, because of their dreariness, also show his present poverty. For practicality purposes, I also incorporated certain elements of the reference photos in different ways, like adding a patchwork vest instead of jeans.

For Skylar, to maintain the grungy yet girly essences of the original design, I designed a darker costume with a crochet fishnet top, contrasting these elements with youthful, feminine elements like a short skirt and bows.  Similarly, when given the reference photo of a long black mesh dress for Paulina’s character, I collaborated extensively with Karen to create a general understanding of what she envisioned for the character. For this youthful rebel I once again incorporated dull warm colors and honored the initial vision of a flowy mesh dress, altering it to add more coverage and color to the character.

For characters that had a prior design, like Ryu and Maya, I collaborated with our lead designer and director to make slight tweaks needed for practicality, like adding a long sleeve shirt, leaving the end product nearly identical to the original designs.