By Chelsie Li ’21, Horizons Media Team

Vivian ’21 is from Beijing, China, and she has always been interested in fashion design. During the COVID pandemic, she started her own fashion project, which was inspired by her quarantine life. Horizon Media Team member Chelsie Li ’21 caught up with Vivian in the spring of 2021 for this conversation.

What inspired me was the pandemic and my quarantine life. After I flew back from the U.S. to China, I had fourteen days of quarantine, and after I left the quarantine site, I felt like I finally stepped out from limitations and felt free.

What are some of the takeaways from this process?

I improved my skills in making collages, draping, and textile design, and most importantly, I made a lot of friends who are also interested in art and fashion.

What are some challenges you encountered?

There were various challenges during the process. Doing draping was not easy, since the structure of the clothes I designed was intricate, and I spent a lot of time making them look the way I anticipated. Also, due to the pandemic, finding a studio to work in was hard. Another challenge was that I have kind-of different ideas, and I sometimes vacillate between ideas, which makes my work not efficient enough.

What did you enjoy most throughout the process?

What I enjoyed the most is drawing, and I am very good at it. I also enjoyed the sense of accomplishment of working my way through the project. I love the process, and I feel satisfied with what I achieved.

What kind of work were you doing?

Fashion is a whole process, each little step is critical. The steps of my fashion project were the inspiration board, the mood board, the color board, textile design, first lineup sketches, draping, analysis, more sketches, final lineup sketches, and final draping. Then, I ordered fabrics and made the clothing. Next, I contacted the photographer and the model for the photoshoot, went over the shooting plan with the photographer, and, after the photoshoot, the last step was phototypesetting.

What is an end goal you hope to achieve?

Ultimately, I hope to become more creative and add more bold elements to my designs, which are an expression of emotion and about feeling limitations and freedom at the same time.

What do you want to say with your design?

My design is an expression of emotion. It is about feeling limitations and freedom at the same time.