Final project- Antsy: Concept and reflection

When I started this concept, my main gripe was with the lack of diversity and openness in menswear fashion.

Women have inclusive fashion. But portrayals of men have not changed much. Why can’t men be free to explore and be themselves?

Men use clothes to fit into their societal stereotype and perform heteronormativity. In the society of performative gender, clothes are of dual purpose, to build up our outer shell of appearing to be masculine, and to possess the traits of coolness and strength, and to hide our true selves, masking whatever detracts from our performance, erasing whatever society deems as “inadequate”. This creates a lot of stress as e continue building up our shell but become more resignedly hollow within, as we do not nuture and let our true selves out.

Can’t we embrace ourselves?

Thus for this project, I want to design a menswear fashion show. The unique twist is that instead of men, they are human-noids with insect heads and other insect parts. But all in all they’re standing upright like humans. The insect i have chosen is the ant, to represent feeling of “antsy-ness”, of being anxious and ill at ease with oneself. Reflecting how we feel unease with our true selves when we all try to use clothing to cover our true disfigurement and using clothes to create status, in this societal and gendered performance.

Such concepts are not easy to bring up through packaging alone, thus Lisa suggested that I create a zine. The constant motif is lines in the zebra crossing. These lines dictate the societal order and structure that we conform to. In the sea of black and whit monotonous conformity, the persona walking through wonders if they can truly embrace their own self and fit in.

Because i cannot actually choreograph a fashion show, I intend to create a few collaterals for marketing purposes; a zine to introduce the concept of the show, cards, posters, billboard advertisements, digital wallpapers and mail-in calendars.

 

Antsy Zine process

During the journey of creating the zine, I gained inspiration from the aesthetic qualities of a handmade zine. The color and quality of risograph printing and screen tones seemed to be a striking aesthetic distinctly juxtaposed against the glossy images pushed out by the fashion magazine- perfect for my anti-conforming message.

I chose the screen-tone style and used “color halftone” in photoshop to create the pixelated texture. It was very suitable in creating texture and depth to my insect humanoids. Furthermore, the dotted pattern was directly contrasting with my linear motifs, creating visual interest.

Here are some drafts i created to show my persona interacting with clothes. At first I wanted to create a very anthromorphic character, taking reference from animated films like “antz” and “bugs life”. However, I could not manage to get the expressiveness which i wanted. Thus i settled on creating a humanoid with feelers, glasses and insect limbs. I tried to create words through shadows but it proved to be too distracting and not as concise

Thus i decided to simplify it and just have people walking on the zebra crossing. Each person has a different identity and performs a different but accepted form of masculinity. Our main persona looks on and is caught like a deer in the headlights, unsure of what he should be

Break out – Mockups

 

Besides a zine, I decided to create an array of products as collateral for publicizing my fashion show. I created cards and calendar pads, a poster and digital wallpaper. I also created an a1 poster to publicize the main event. 

 

 

Rejects:

I created this but i do feel its not as good. It overall looks very confusing as the colours clash and fight for attention