Student Description

The creator would like to stress that this work should not be seen as support or condonement of the Marcos regime in any way and is purely a statement on fashion, not politics.

"My non-apparel major work is a collection of three handbags made from faux leather and vinyl and were inspired by the 1950s, Imelda Marcos and Dior. The topstitch cannage pattern of the Lady Dior bag has inspired me to add a diamond pattern on the yellow bag and a curved pattern on the bottom of the bag synonymous to Imelda Marcos signature bouffant while the black bag is outlined with a gold topstitching thread to symbolise the gold embellishments on Imeldas favourite Beltrami black heels. Each bag is labelled with a defining year of Imelda Marcos life with gold foil and is further illustrated through the emotions the colour of the bags evoke: yellow represents the happiness of her wedding, green represents her wealth during her husbands presidency and black represents her grief as she was exiled from her country. Furthermore, a quatrefoil pattern symbolic of Imeldas bouffant is innovatively heat transferred onto the satin lining. To represent the inventive 1950s era, I attached mirrors to the lining of the black and yellow bag and used clear vinyl on the green bag as a substitute to the innovative 1950s Lucite bag.This process taught me the importance of time management and the consequences of perfectionism. My fear of making a major work project that was imperfect cost my dearly, as I kept overthinking details and starting over, delaying the entire process. If I were to do this project again, I would have disciplined myself to work on it every single day, even if it were just five minutes of work as I would have progressed a lot better and would have minimised the stress experienced during the later stages of the project. This process was very challenging as I was using materials that I had little to no experience with, such as clear vinyl, rivets, gold foil, wood burner, rolling foot, etc., The greatest challenge was the the green bag as I made the pattern myself and it required a lot of hand stitching as its bulk made it difficult to sew on the sewing machine. The most valuable experience was learning to ask for help, there was that initial fear that others could mess up my major work but once I learned to trust, it made the process a lot easier and even allowed me to spend more time with my family and friends."

Images of Work

"Topstitching strengthened the bags as it firmly stitched the thick layers together and it elevated their uniqueness as they had different designs and varied their texture. I used it as a pattern on the yellow and green bag and used it to outline the black bag."

"Heat transfer printing was used to create a quatrefoil pattern on the lining of the yellow and black bag. It reinforced the sophistication of each bag as it produced high quality images that made it as interesting as the outside design, successfully contributing to the aesthetic design of my project."

Select Student Folio Pages

The pages selected for each project reflect the individual students' interpretations of the syllabus guidelines for the MTP. Each student should develop their folio according to the guidelines, relating to their own individual project. This may result in a variety of presentation styles, numbers of sketches and/or experiments.