Fashion Inspirations
As I was finding my way as a fashion designer at the tender age of 13 in the mid-80's, I often drew my inspiration from television, or even real life. In other words, I flat-out stole ideas.
These first two were actual outfits worn by the singer Laura Branigan (best known for "Gloria," but I owned and repeatedly listened to two of her tapes and still have quite a soft spot for "Down Like a Rock," "The Lucky One" and even the godawful "Ti Amo"). The jumpsuit I know she wore on an episode of Solid Gold (singing the aforementioned godawful "Ti Amo"), the other one was from a video... "Self Control," maybe? Laura was one of my idols until I figured out that she didn't write her own songs. Then we were done.
The inspiration for this look should be obvious to anyone who watched MTV in the 80's. Let's see if anyone guesses it. (And if nobody does, we'll all know that I'm an even worse artist than I give myself credit for.)
Now this is a dress that I saw on TV, I am absolutely certain of it, but I cannot remember anything besides the dress. Was it an episode of The Love Boat, perhaps? (Hey, I steal from the best.) I'm pretty sure I drew the model to resemble the actress who was wearing it, so this would have been Heather Locklear, maybe? I named her Olivia - perhaps a tribute to Olivia d'Abo from The Wonder Years? Did she ever wear a purple dress with a sequined top and a chiffon skirt on that show? Was the actual dress green, so that I had no choice but to draw it in order to make it purple? I vaguely remember that it might have been green on TV. ANYWAY, the point is, this was a real dress that I loved so much that I was inspired to re-create it in pencil and magic marker.
My favorite TV show, Buck Rogers, provided a lot of inspiration, particularly the "futuristic outer space" gowns worn by the villainess, Princess Ardala.
By the way, in case you have not figured this out on your own, I could not draw faces very well, but I knew instinctively (without any coaching from Collier Strong from L'Oreal Paris) that a model's makeup was very important to the overall look of a design, so I developed a system of drawing the face whereby eyelashes meant "this model is wearing makeup," a thin line of rouge on each cheek meant "this model is wearing quite a bit of makeup" and GIANT HALF-CIRCLES of rouge meant "OK, this look needs a SHIT-TON OF MAKEUP, so PILE IT ON."
The design below features a shirt that existed in real life, in a store, that I really, really wanted. In real life the mesh was white, not black, but I couldn't figure out a way to draw that. I was always wanting to buy things that involved mesh and corsets and the like, and my parents (particularly my stepmother) would try to convince me that those clothes were "too mature" for me because they were "sexy" which made me furious because of course I was not trying to look "sexy" (GROSS), but how was I supposed to achieve my dream of being a glamorous star of the microphone if they kept holding me back from the clothes that were putting Madonna and Cyndi Lauper on magazine covers? They didn't understand ANYTHING about fashion. Witness the cuteness I imagined of me in a red tank/mesh top with jeans. Totally not too sexy, right?
Finally, this is an original design that I chose to accessorize with a belt I actually owned at the time.
Yes. I owned a "breakdancing belt" (but mine was brown rather than the gray pictured here). And wore it to school. No accolades were forthcoming.
It is not easy being a misunderstood artist.
These first two were actual outfits worn by the singer Laura Branigan (best known for "Gloria," but I owned and repeatedly listened to two of her tapes and still have quite a soft spot for "Down Like a Rock," "The Lucky One" and even the godawful "Ti Amo"). The jumpsuit I know she wore on an episode of Solid Gold (singing the aforementioned godawful "Ti Amo"), the other one was from a video... "Self Control," maybe? Laura was one of my idols until I figured out that she didn't write her own songs. Then we were done.
The inspiration for this look should be obvious to anyone who watched MTV in the 80's. Let's see if anyone guesses it. (And if nobody does, we'll all know that I'm an even worse artist than I give myself credit for.)
Now this is a dress that I saw on TV, I am absolutely certain of it, but I cannot remember anything besides the dress. Was it an episode of The Love Boat, perhaps? (Hey, I steal from the best.) I'm pretty sure I drew the model to resemble the actress who was wearing it, so this would have been Heather Locklear, maybe? I named her Olivia - perhaps a tribute to Olivia d'Abo from The Wonder Years? Did she ever wear a purple dress with a sequined top and a chiffon skirt on that show? Was the actual dress green, so that I had no choice but to draw it in order to make it purple? I vaguely remember that it might have been green on TV. ANYWAY, the point is, this was a real dress that I loved so much that I was inspired to re-create it in pencil and magic marker.
My favorite TV show, Buck Rogers, provided a lot of inspiration, particularly the "futuristic outer space" gowns worn by the villainess, Princess Ardala.
By the way, in case you have not figured this out on your own, I could not draw faces very well, but I knew instinctively (without any coaching from Collier Strong from L'Oreal Paris) that a model's makeup was very important to the overall look of a design, so I developed a system of drawing the face whereby eyelashes meant "this model is wearing makeup," a thin line of rouge on each cheek meant "this model is wearing quite a bit of makeup" and GIANT HALF-CIRCLES of rouge meant "OK, this look needs a SHIT-TON OF MAKEUP, so PILE IT ON."
The design below features a shirt that existed in real life, in a store, that I really, really wanted. In real life the mesh was white, not black, but I couldn't figure out a way to draw that. I was always wanting to buy things that involved mesh and corsets and the like, and my parents (particularly my stepmother) would try to convince me that those clothes were "too mature" for me because they were "sexy" which made me furious because of course I was not trying to look "sexy" (GROSS), but how was I supposed to achieve my dream of being a glamorous star of the microphone if they kept holding me back from the clothes that were putting Madonna and Cyndi Lauper on magazine covers? They didn't understand ANYTHING about fashion. Witness the cuteness I imagined of me in a red tank/mesh top with jeans. Totally not too sexy, right?
Finally, this is an original design that I chose to accessorize with a belt I actually owned at the time.
Yes. I owned a "breakdancing belt" (but mine was brown rather than the gray pictured here). And wore it to school. No accolades were forthcoming.
It is not easy being a misunderstood artist.