Textile Design

Costume Design

This shirt was part of a project I designed for my costume construction class at UCSC. The basis of the project was to create a wearable garment out of a muslin base and dye it using natural dyes we formulated ourselves. Inspired by various textile artists and artwork I’ve seen recently, I used natural-fiber remnants and found material to create three-dimensional textures on my piece. As I was making different shapes out of materials like wool fibers and yarn, or cotton netting, for example, I was inspired by coral forms, a motif I wanted to develop through my design

As an artist and a lover of our beautiful planet, I always advocate for environmental protection where I can, mainly because I acknowledge that the fashion and textile industry is not sustainable or ethical. The fashion industry contributes to over 10% of overall carbon emissions, the main contributor to global warming. I wanted to emphasize the theme of the effects of coral bleaching for this piece, as the sector directly affects the health of our environment. Global warming directly affects reef health by causing water temperatures to rise, encouraging algae growth that inhibits corals from getting the nutrients they need to survive. As corals die off, their skeletal remnants create a ghostly, bleached reef.