Porcelina – Lucian
This project was designed to explore the relationship between concept and execution in fashion. Thus I decided to make clothes for porcelain dolls so I could also work with scale. It is a study of persona, diva-dome and aesthetic; Porcelina.
Here is a link to Porcelina’s instagram were you can see all of the garments.
https://www.instagram.com/my_porcelina1/
While I am happy with where I am in all of these fields, I realized that this project is mainly about something slightly deeper. Though Porcelina barely fits with our cultural beauty standards, she is something that I have longed to be, a supermodel. A supermodel is typically someone who is ultra popular and makes a lot of money, though mainstream drag culture changed all of that. Ru Paul’s song “supermodel” allowed everyone to feel like Linda Evangelista in the comfort of their own home. Thus I realized that this project, at least for me, was about bringing out the supermodel within. Shockingly, my biggest influence was drag culture. Modern drag has evolved to so much more than gender impersonation, it has become about expressing personality and art. This is clearest through artists like Juno Birch. She is a British drag queen, who regularly makes videos on youtube. I and most of the world feel in love with her funny personality and signature aesthetics. She paints her face in different pastel colors and contours with similar shades. She derives this character from the sculptures she creates that often depict pastel, alien women. In her vogue video she discussed how as a trans woman she often feels like she is an alien impersonating a woman, or at least that’s how others perceive her, thus her drag style. I found this so amazingly unique and creative and it influenced me to dress Porcelina with drag culture in mind. While most of the work I did was sewing on a machine or by hand, some of my favorite pieces were made using hot glue. Mainly the pinecone dress in the last look and the hat in the second. While hot glue is very frowned upon in mainstream fashion In doll clothes it is not only normalized but encouraged. I found this blurred line between fashion and crafting quite liberating.