Brief - Rosa Boehm

Frilled Lizard Harness  - A wearable design based on the Frill Lizard's defense mechanism and the Diurnal Mural of a gecko on Garden St. This piece is meant to draw attention to fear and show when the person is feeling this based on how the scales react to their emotion. 

The Frilled Lizard Neckpiece is a fashion wearable designed to mimic the defense mechanism of the Frilled Lizard, which pops up its frill when it feels threatened. The lizard's frill is a circular flab of skin behind the neck that pops up to frame the head and create a larger more menacing appearance. The neckpiece adapts this mechanism for humans: the model can move the wooden scales used to imitate the frill by having the model fold his or her arms towards themselves. One way that this could be incorporated into society is if someone needs help communicating his or her emotions to others. Instead of verbally communicating, they would be able to visually communicate through this design. Our hope is to help people visualize how much we have in common with other creatures even as remote from us as a frilled lizard, and how we can learn from them. 

Jacob Creem: Exploding Shoulder is a fashion wearable created from a plain white T-shirt decorated with an intricate mix of media that envelop the right shoulder and left waist area of the shirt in a colorful frenzy. The inspiration for the wearable comes from a beautiful mural by Felipe Ortiz in Central Square, Cambridge. Ortiz's work plays with the contrast between dark and light colors and juxtaposes chaos and complexity with calm, simple motifs.

Exploding Shoulder was created to emulate the way a scene of chaos obtrudes on a calm setting, represented by the plain white T-shirt. On the top right shoulder and bottom left waist area, a great web of patchwork, trim, and hem creates a cacophony of textures and colors that seem to overwhelm the shirt. Ranging from felt to linen and velvet, the fabrics are handmade in multiple designs. Some reflect the curved lines of a dream catcher, while others are woven in complex patterns such as an Egyptian knot. In an effort to stabilize these fabrics and those protruding from the shoulder and waist, a melted acrylic mold was made to form around the body and hold the fabrics in place. In addition, cardboard linkages with fabrics draped and stitched around them give the wearable an element of motion. Paired with the intricacy of the stitched fabrics, the movement of the wearable immediately draws attention to the chaos of the shoulder and waist enveloping the white shirt. The hope is that Exploding Shoulder can serve as a memento to the immediacy and vibrancy that street art, unlike museum art, has to offer. Street art inspires and Exploding Shoulder aspires to do the same!

As part of the Juxtapose Studio, NuVu students designed five wearables for choreographer Heidi Latsky and four of her performers. These pieces will be worn as part of ON DISPLAY on Saturday, March 4th from 6:30pm to 8:30pm in the Laurie M. Tisch Gallery at the JCC Manhattan (Amsterdam and 76th).

The event is part of the Reelabilities Film Festival and is free and open to the public.

The goal of the fight or flight dress was to create a dress that exerted a physical feeling. Its purpose was to be an addition to the emotion mask which expressed an emotion. When thinking about a physical feeling that can be expressed I imagined the feelings of goosebumps and butterflies in your stomach. Those sort of reactions are the bodies fight or flight response. I decided I wanted to create a dress that exemplifies and expands that response. 

The diagram highlights the panel design and movement. The panels move into the slots and are moved by and attatched long piece which are tied to the tops of the diamonds. Along with finishing printing the rest of the panels, I am also going to apply mylar to the backs of each panel so that when the dress flips up an mirror is portrayed (similar to a chameleon blending into it's backroung which is what its fight or flight response does). The outer layer will also be spray painted glossy white to match the emotion mask. Another piece of the dress is the top of it. I am going to mimic the mask's diamonds and have them sewn or bolted together in as a similar look to the mask. The dress is going to be suspended onto the model with suspenders.

Press: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/fashion-style/blog/2015/10/05/emerging-trends-boston-fashion-week/