Academics

Hello everyone.

This is the first month of school and also the first month of this year’s Odyssey journey. Before school started, I spent a huge amount of time working on art and, of course, included clothing-related art besides hanging out and having fun. One thing that surprised me was that I saw many beautiful archive clothing pieces by famous designers in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum when I was back in Rhode Island this summer. The most prominent one is a jacket that is made of transparent/black cotton net and is made in a trucker jacket shape by designer John Galliano, who is now the creative director of Maison Margiela.

In the first and the following week, the juniors and seniors spent some time getting to know each other, and we also went through the new strategy for this year. I just confirmed my new research topic last week, and now I already have some ideas in my head. We are at the starting point of the new journey, and my plan is to have more research and work done in the following month.

Thank you for your time, and let's keep making progress together.

Hi everyone, welcome to my September blog!

This month, I have contacted two people for interviews. The first person, @edipan4real, is a fashion content/video creator from China, who is also the founder and manager of a clothing brand – Nouveau Project. The other person, @排骨大王chris, is also a Chinese fashion content/video creator. He has a video channel @Fun-Boi-Trips that he cooperates with another two people (one of them currently left). He is also the co-founder/manager of clothing brand – Costa Prima. Both of their brands focus on *techwear and have their own unique designs and their own purposes. We will find out more about them and their brands after the interviews.

Also, I found this video that discusses the business models for designer brands, and mostly talks about the reasons why these brands succeed/fail. I believe I will learn some very useful information and knowledge from this video, especially for my research topic. I will also write a response paper for it. 

Besides that, I was using my free time working on my designs, which I will share with you after they are done.

Thank you so much for your time!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my October blog.

There are some exciting things I would like to share with you this month. Firstable, I was working on my own designs early this month, and I made 3 different looks on paper which I personally am very happy with. The next thing is that I had an interview with Eddie, who is a Chinese fashion influencer & creative director of his own brand – Nouveau Project. We had a very nice conversation. We found a lot in common and I learned a lot from him too. Now, I have scheduled another meeting next month with a local fashion influencer @obra.jay, who was introduced to me by Ms. Jaramillo. I am looking forward to learning more about his ideas and experience on fashion.

I will bring up more content in the next following month and thank you for your time!

Hi everyone, welcome to my November blog!

I met with Johnny (@obra.jay), who is a New Mexican local fashion influencer, and also the owner of clothing brand Obra Market. We had coffee together and we had a great conversation with each other. We shared our ideas and knowledge in fashion and we found a lot in common. It was a really satisfying experience getting to talk with someone who shares the same hobby and passion. He also promised me to link up with other industry professionals which is very exciting.

Besides, this month I spent my spare time working on my designs as usual and I was also taking notes for the interview.

I will create more content and share it with you in the next month. 

Thank you for your time!

Hi everyone, welcome to my December blog! The last blog of this year!

Over this semester, I have learned a lot about fashion through research and interviews. First of all I want to talk about a fashion content creator / youtuber that I found this year - Odunayo Ojo aka Fashion Roadman. He is a very insightful person who has over ten years of working experience in the fashion industry and he is currently also working as a fashion journalist. I learned a lot about fashion, especially the business side of it from this person, and the knowledge he shares definitely helped me a lot with my research.

Secondly, I want to shout out Eddie and Johnny, two people who I interviewed this semester. Eddie is a Chinese content creator on many different platforms and he is also the founder and creative director of his own clothing brand - Nouveau Project. He has a great aesthetic and I love the design of those products he and his brand produce. He told me about his story and experience with fashion, and his vision for the future of his brand and himself. Johnny is also a fashion content creator who is based in New Mexico. I was able to meet with him in person. He is a genuine person who has a lot of contacts in the fashion industry, and also he has his own brand Obra Market. He told me about how important it is to build up contact and connections with people in the fashion industry. We had a very good conversation and we talked about a lot of different stuff about fashion, as we could find a lot in common, which was a great experience.

Fashion for me is not just a regular hobby but something I love and one day it will become my career. I spend almost every day researching, a huge amount of time on studying different aspects of fashion through many different ways and platforms and also practicing by designing and making my own stuff. I always sketch down my ideas everytime I feel like something comes to mind. I also had experience remaking clothes myself, including sewing, graffiti, patch works, painting, etc., and I have learned a lot through those experiences. Besides, I often search for cool pieces, buy and style them by myself. Those things helped me upgrade my aesthetic and find my own style in fashion, and I am still searching for more on this journey. To me, fashion is way more than a research project and I feel like I have way more things to share but I will wrap it up here for now.

In the next semester, I’m planning to explore more mediums in my design, including graphic design (Photoshop), etc. I also have some amazing books I’m going to read, and hopefully I’ll find more helpful information, historical knowledge, ideas and inspiration.

Now is the time to start preparing for my final presentation. I’m looking forward to sharing some cool stuff with everyone and I hope everything will go smoothly.

Thank you for your time and see you next year!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my January blog! The first blog of the year!

This month, I was able to spend a lot of time reading a fashion book that I got a year ago. It’s a book of fashion history that tracks the evolution of fashion and trends in different time periods and in different origins. I love the book but I didn't really have much time to read it. Since it’s my last semester of school, I will have a lot of free time to read through it which is amazing. I also had an interview with this famous youtuber / fashion influencer Drew Joiner. It was a short 30 min interview and we talked about his experience of becoming well known on social media and video platforms, his point of view on fashion, and he also gave some of his suggestions of making content.

Last thing of this month was the UNM trip and it was really fun. I couldn’t imagine that there are so many good books of fashion archives, and I found ones that I would like to collect for myself in the future.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you have a good day!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my February blog!

In the past month, I was mostly focusing on reading the fashion books I have(The book of fashion history and Virgil Abloh: "Figures of Speech). I am taking a lot of inspiration from them. The second one really helps me learn more about Virgil – his ideas and his work, as he is one of my favorite artists/designers and I’m very interested in this person. (Founder of Off White, former creative director for Louis Vuitton, 1980 – 2021, R.I.P.)

Besides that, I am also using my spare time creating my own work. The hardest part is really finding inspiration and making up the concept/theme for the work. Once I have an idea, it actually doesn’t take long to finish the work. What I’m recently working on is a series of looks inspired by aliens and monsters. The work is still in progress, once it’s done I will upload them on the drive.

Thank you for your time! 

Hello, everyone,

This is my first blog! For my project, I interviewed two industry insiders I know. I really learned something new from them, and I believe the content they produce was helpful for both my project progress and for myself. I have one written down already.

I also started reading a book that I got about fashion history, which is amazing.

Through September and the first half of October, all the junior Odyssey Scholars had been practicing the speeches for the presentation with friends and parents. Our goal was to explain to the audience about our projects. We had a reception on October 19 from 5:30 to 6:00. I was given the opportunity to speak on stage and to introduce my own project to my friends and everyone else that was invited.

 It was a special experience since it was my first public speaking presentation in at least one year, and this time the audience was not just my classmates, but also people I didn’t know and students’ parents. I believe we all did well and gained useful public speaking experience.

That’s all I have for this month. I will try to make more content next month.

I wish everyone the best. Thank you!

Hello, everyone!

All of the junior Odyssey Scholars, including me, had a wonderful volunteer experience at Cuidando Los Ninos, a daycare center for kids whose parents are struggling with homelessness. We helped the people who work there with those kids, and I personally enjoyed the time with them because they were energetic. It was something that I would like to do again in the future.

For the Odyssey Scholars study, I researched a designer named Martin Margiela, who is one of my favorite designers, and I wrote a response paper about him. He is a Belgian fashion designer, artist, and founder of the French luxury fashion house Maison Martin Margiela (known as Maison Margiela nowadays). He is considered one of the most influential fashion designers in the fashion history for his iconic deconstructed designs, use of upcycled materials, and oversized contour.

 I also did some design sketches. I sketched a couple of models wearing the pieces that I came up with. Although these are relatively simple designs, I believe it is also one of the most important elements for my project, and I will be creating more pieces in the future.

As usual, I am spending a big amount of my free time on learning about fashion.

Thank you for your time and have a nice day!

Hello, everyone!

This month I worked on my art project of remaking a pair of jeans. I painted on the back pockets of the jeans with acrylic paint and I also cut the knee patches down from another pair of jeans. Later, I will sew them on and then paint them. I also drew a small logo that I designed myself on the front of the jeans--a logo with my own name on it but with a similar format of a DVD. I really like it and I think it is a nice, decorated detail on the jeans. I’m half way through this project and ideally it will be done during middle or late February.

Besides that, I watched a couple videos and read articles about sewing and painting in order to gain more knowledge on how to work on my project. Also, one thing important for me this month is that I learned from a classmate how to use a sewing machine. It was very complicated how I had to put the threads in the right place and it took both of us a long time to figure it out. I appreciate her help and patience.

Thank you for your time and have a nice day!

Hello, everyone!

This month, I mostly focused on my jeans remake project. I’ve been spending a lot of time and effort on it, and now it has almost hit the closing stage. I enjoyed the process a lot. It’s one of the most satisfying projects I’ve done during these years. It is something remarkable for me since it is my very first time working on an actual piece of cloth with a sewing machine. 

The project also has been challenging and worrisome. While I was working on it, I faced many problems. Sometimes the threads would get tangled together for no reason and make the machine stuck, and then I had to stop to check what happened. A lot of times I couldn’t even find out why, so I finally decided to switch to another sewing machine. Since then I almost never encountered any big problems, which made me feel much better.

Overall, everything is going pretty smoothly within my plan. I can’t wait to share the final product with everyone.

Thank you for your time and have a nice day!

1. My first step was using a marker to mark where I wanted to sew on the

patches. I drew the lines of where I want my knee patch to be. I also drew a small logo that was inspired by the DVD logo and I put my name on it. 

2. Then, my second step was to cut down different sizes of patches.

3. The next step involved working on the back pockets because they are easy to start with and they won't interfere with the other parts I wanted to work on. First, I took the decorative threads out of the pockets, so it makes the surface more flat and easier to paint on. Then I adjusted the colors I needed and mixed them with the fabric medium. As you can see, I put the base color (white) on and then I put down the background color (which was brown and pink) and at the end I have all the details painted (the clouds, cactus and mountains). The message behind these pictures is that I hope everyone who sees them can feel peace and chill. 

4. I used pins to set the patches on where they belong. Then I took off the sutures of the legs, so they are ready to be put on the sewing machine. 

5. Then it comes to the sewing part. This was my first time using a sewing machine. A classmate taught me how to use it, and I didn't e

6. As it went on, there were more ideas coming to my mind and I added more patches on the jeans that I thought were going to make them look even better. I also cut off the sutures of the leg openings, so the textures that were washed out could be shown, which I think was beautiful. 

7. This is when I'm done sewing (and of course later I had the legs re-sewed).

8. The final version looks like this.

9. And here are more photos of the details:

It was a really fun process, not just because it was a brand new experience for me but also because I really enjoyed the process. Although the finished product is a little different from my expectations, I still think it was a good try. I am willing to do more practice like this in the future and I believe that's going to help.