Crochet As Fashion & Design

For the longest time, knitwear has dominated the fashion space as one of the main categories of clothing. It was until recently crochet made its way into the runway as a result of a rapidly growing crochet community. Due to quarantine, handmade clothing became a trend and what people are interested in shifted. However, I don’t like to focus too much on what’s trendy since I started crocheting way before pre-quarantine. To me, crochet is more than just a trend.

The way I approach crochet comes from three perspectives:

The first perspective is a business perspective that makes sure the shop sustains itself. I try to find ways to balance out affordability and also fairly paying myself for the labor that goes into hand making these items. If you read my past posts, you can see the breakdown of pricing.
The second perspective is a designer perspective on how I want my clothing design to look like and how it be worn. Most, not all, of my designs factor in how wearable it is and how it can be styled by every day people. There are many items for crochet to exist in a lifestyle that isn't just clothing. There are also practical uses to crochet as well.
The last perspective is that of an artist. This is where I allow myself the creative freedom to present my designs in a story I want to tell. Since I study some art and did performance arts, I always use that experience to shape how I present my work.

A collection of clothing can have many different functions and meaning to it. It could be inspired by anything. It could also be a commentary on society or the world. Just like starting with a blank canvas, you decide what you want to do with it. Fashion has an impact in presentation and story telling. It conveys a message visually that people can relate to in their own way. This is why we have individual style, fashion statements, and costumes.

Using Patterns in Your Collection

When diving into the world of crochet, many beginners find themselves in an ocean full of patterns. There are endless free patterns available as mentioned before in my previous post, "How I Study Crochet". Check that post out for links to resources of where I find these patterns. Whether you are a visual learner or a pattern reader, it takes practice to get used to the crochet lingo. I suggest you read this blog post, "How to read crochet patterns" to understand the common lingo crochet uses.

There are endless vast amounts of patterns you can learn from or feature in your designs. If a pattern for a design exists that fits the theme of your collection, you can always create it and have it be featured. If it contributes to your story telling, then I’d say go for it. However, you must check in with the creator on the terms & conditions of their patterns whether it only be for personal use or can be for sale.

Freehanding Your Designs

This is something I like to do a lot actually. I like to invent, experiment, and introduce new ideas to the crochet world. It’s so fun to just crochet intuitively without a pattern. I always find myself not being able to find the pattern that I want for a design to fit my collection, so I ended up just creating my own designs. If you’re the type of person that follows strictly with a pattern and only do pattern testing, then power to you.

For those that like to freehand, make sure you’re doing it with the integrity of designing something that is genuinely yours. This post below is made by a fellow crocheter on what is deemed as inspiration versus plagiarism. She makes some compelling points that opens a discussion on what can be made originally and creating from a pattern.

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A post shared by hayley 沈雪琪 ♡ ᵕ̈ (@softlymadecottage)

Dreamland as A Fantasy World

When I started off 2021, I had in mind that I wanted to create a collection. I was going to post it as I go and have it be a year-long presentation. Instead of preparing a collection and launching it on one day to present, I decided to bring my audience on a journey with me to see the collection throughout the seasons. As a result, my audience grew exponentially. To me, it was less about making sales and more about telling a story.

Dreamland is a personal look into the mental health journey. This collection takes an introspective dive in a fantasy world I conjured up to cope with the reality the world was going through. We are in the middle of a pandemic and humanity has a lot of stressors they deal with daily. Dreamland served as an escape from the outside world and taking a deep look inside the human experience. What do we fantasize about? What is paradise to us?

As individuals, we all carry around some form of trauma. As a POC Asian-American, we carry generational trauma. Dreamland is about reclaiming lost childhood and healing those inner child wounds. Often times, growing up with immigrant parents rob the first generation of Asian-Americans a childhood where we don't have to worry about "making it" for our parents' sacrifices. Given responsibilities at a young age, we were taught to survive more than to just enjoy our lives. Youth, identity, love, dreams, and deep emotions were a major theme in this collection. I wanted to romanticize a childhood that many others like myself didn't have.

In this fairytale, there is a vague storyline I am following about a romance between a mythical siren and a human. Romance and love seems to be a fantasy for us. There's nothing wrong with dreaming about it because it inspires art. Here's a film quote from Dead Poets Society (1989) that I find inspiring.

This playlist actually inspired a lot of the mermaid fairytale romance I wanted to convey.

Dreamland ends with waking up and coming back to our present reality. Much like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan from Neverland, we return from these enchanting places to our mundane reality. But this begs the question of whether we feel nostalgia or inspiration to create in our reality what we experienced in our dream state. When we live out our desires in life, what are we truly chasing after? Does our childhood dreams impact our lives as adults? Those are the open-ended questions I would like to leave it off on.

References/Inspiration:

Mermaids, sirens, mythology (Aphrodite)
Medieval folklore, fairytales, Shakespeare
Surrealism, romanticism, and classical art movements
Classical antiquity era
90’s anime drawings
SNES games (Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past & Chrono Trigger)
Meyoco art
Studio Ghibli films
Dead Poets Society (1989) film
Alice in Wonderland (1951) film
Peter Pan (1953) film
50s/60s music

Here's the link to the Pinterest mood board of pins that are inspiration for Dreamland.

What's Next?

Honestly, this collection got me beat but I never felt more alive. In 2020, I experienced the worse creative burnout in a long time. This got me to center back into my inner creativity and focus on what is important. I picked up the book 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron to help me connect to my creative source and it has been eye-opening. I will actually start writing book review content on this blog on my leisure time! After working so hard on the collection this year, I can safely say that I still have creative juices to keep going. However, I am going to take healthy breaks in between to recover before I dive into telling another story.

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If you read this far, thank you for your interest in what I have to create. I hope to create more content that you can enjoy. This has been something I’ve been yearning to do for the longest time. To have the space to create it is what I am grateful for. Thanks for enjoying Dreamland. There might be more in store.

How I Design A Collection + What Dreamland is About