To The Eye is a knitwear collection inspired by the conceptual relationship between visual weight and physical mass. How can a large garment be 'lightened' in visual weight by a smaller garment with a greater visual presence? How can a single fold stand out amongst others through complex relationships of color and pattern? How can the eye be fooled, confused and pleased by contrasting combinations of colors and layering of prints and patterns?
Fundamental to the collection is a sense of wrongness. The soft hand of a fabric is distorted by thick painted prints, grids are disrupted by slight errors and the human hand, combinations of colors are vibrational yet satisfying; all to emphasize the contrast between the visual and physical qualities of the garments. Much of the collection was self-generated, with inspiration coming heavily from optical illusions I designed myself within my color palette, draping and consideration of the possibilites of knits.
The look on the left is my cut & sew garment, the look on the right was knit entirely on an industrial knitting machine.
March 5th 2015
There is a stark chill in the air, it is grey outside.
She is still in bed, despite the fact that it’s 12:15 pm, she opens up the weather app on her phone, 43 degrees with high humidity. As she sighs at the dismal weather, she pulls herself out of bed. Standing up, she’s in the middle of her studio apartment, decorated with chartreuse and rose and rich oranges. It smells slightly like salt from the bath she took last night with faint traces of laundry detergent throughout the room.
After turning on her electric kettle she migrates to the bathroom, staring hard into the mirror. She splashes some cold water on her face, lazily brushes her teeth and pulls her hair into some form that she likes. Mumbling under her breath at no one in particular she goes to her small closet and selects her look for the day. She never likes her outfits
to look obvious so much of her wardrobe is asymmetrical with heavy basics and light print-like pieces. “That would look stupid” she mutters while combing through her garments. She mostly wears knits and these past few months she’s become obsessively attached to bright pinks, light greens and oranges, most of her garments are soft, she sifts her hand through all of them as she searches for something she likes. She chooses a heavy skirt, with folds of rich forest green and billowing form. The elastic band fits closely to her waist and she likes how you can’t understand if it is a skirt or pants, she likes to confuse. To complement, she pulls on two contrasting t-shirts, an asymmetrical sweater and a green and pink striped coatigan. “What the hell even is a coatigan?”, she questions but puts it on anyway because she likes how light, warm and bold it is. When she wears the coatigan it seems like it was designed to be an eyesore, to clash in bold harmony with anything it is worn with, she likes that. She likes the whole ‘optical effect’ of color, to be glaringly bright in cold spring sunlight. She wants to be noticed but she hides somewhat beneath her many layers and smoothly finished tops and bottoms comforted by their simplicity and complicated color relationships.
Once she has poured her boiling water over two or three black tea bags she throws it all back in a single drink and spends the next half an hour waiting for someone to call or text her. It is her day off, usually she’s designing textiles or making jewelry or whatever but today she’s dedicated herself to doing nothing that causes the any combination of excitement and anxiety. The first friend who texts her wants to go to the mall, she lies her way out of having to go because honestly she’d rather rot than spend three hours meandering about the mall. Eventually, she decides to meet up with her friend Kim at a small coffee shop next to some thrift stores. On her way out the door she applies some orange eyeshadow to her inner crease and embraces the chill of the air.
