CDF Project 5
Project Introduction
For this project, I will create a three spreads for a digital magazine. Using components such as composition, hierarchy, color, typeface, and intention, I will create fashion inspired magazine spreads inspired by Vogue Magazine. These spreads will include stories about the designer, the garment, and photos with a model.
Grid Exercise
Nov 13, 2020
Information Research
Nov 16, 2020
Vogue Magazine is a monthly fashion, beauty, and lifestyle magazine that covers many topics in general. For this project, I will be focusing on the fashion part of the magazine. Fashion is so inspirational and trendy in all aspects and genre. There are so many different kinds as well as various cultural styles.
Celine: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/celine
Since the summer of 2020, when he showed his Dancing Boy men’s collection — an ode to e-boys — on a Formula One track in the South of France, Hedi Slimane has switched his approach to documentary mode. The second half of what he called (in an email) a “portrait of a generation” — this one for girls — was also filmed in a sports venue, the Stade Louis II in Monaco. “With this collection Hedi wants to show, through the youth [and] optimism, the hope [in] this uncertain time.”
Styling and restyling the bourgeois codes of what Celine used to stand for is how he started at this house. Now, interrupting them with how they might be rehandled by French Gen Z on the street — or at home — is the name of his game.
She’s “always the Parisian but with a new energy — she listens to rap/hip-hop music” — like the track by Princess Nokia, which looped hypnotically as the models strode the circuit, their Celine-logo baseball caps and bucket hats pulled down, hands thrust in the pockets of their jeans, shorts, and ’80s style blousons.
The timeless bits of luxury fashion — like the tailored blazer, the glamorous sequined dress, and the ladylike Sulky bag — are still centrally represented: Slimane isn’t about to give up on plying that wardrobe. The difference is his sharp-eyed assessment of the way that the granddaughters of Celine’s earlier customers will likely give the posh stuff a complete dressing down. Gone are the old tropes of proper, high-heel polish. This generation will only wear flats — anything from sneakers to fluffy bedroom slides to hiking boots and Wellington boots — put crop tops under blazers, throw on nylon jackets over loose-fitting sparkly dresses and track pants under jackets.
It’s a rewritten language of style that Slimane aims to be read by youth globally. The parting shot of the film soared up through the roof of the Monegasque stadium, switched to a darkened sky, and culminated with a view of the earth seen from space. What did it signify? That our planet is beautiful and we’re still lucky to be alive on it — maybe something like that. For the anxious times that all kids are living through, that seemed to be Slimane’s small gesture of hope.
Versace: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/versace
I spoke to Donatella Versace days after she had emerged from the quarantine she spent alone in Milan, kept company only by her dog. She’d just had her roots dyed (“I’d forgotten what color my hair was”) and was coming back to her very own amplified version of real life. Glammed to the nines and back in business, she sounded so happy on the phone, as if she’d experienced a rebirth of sorts. Four months on, in an email on the morning of her first show since lockdown, her words echoed that sentiment. “The world has changed and we have changed. We have been repeating this almost as a mantra for months, but at the end of the day, for a designer this means to start all over again.”
Because there can be no re-emergence without prior submergence, Versace seemingly staged her live-streamed show — closed to the public and attended by staff only — in the imagined ruins of Atlantis, water currents streaming down its projected walls. This was the remnants of an old world long gone, its mythical citizens rising from the deep blue in an oceanic make-do and mend of starfish, coral, and seashell motifs from Gianni Versace’s ‘trésor de la mer’ collection for Spring 1992. They were ready to take on a new reality like the Rebirth of Venus herself (starring Adut Akech in the title role, of course). Versace, who described the collection as having “an upbeat soul,” said her challenge was to give fashion meaning in a historical moment like this.
“I wanted to do something disruptive and to break the rules because I think that, what worked a few months ago, does not make any sense today. Creatively, that meant finding a way to bring the DNA of Versace to a new reality and to people who have undergone a deep change.” Under the archival sea, she found her ideal metaphor for a new world of diverse wonders, bringing them to life in a powerful co-ed cast that boosted her ongoing messages of body positivity and gender-nonconformity. Asked how she envisions Versace’s role in the post-pandemic landscape, she said as “an example of inclusion, of mutual support, and acceptance of what is different from us.”
Sometimes, of course, you’ve got to be seen to be heard. Versace’s collection did that, and some, in a pumped-up zingy-colored mix of Malibu Barbie’s summer wardrobe and that of the Little Mermaid if only Prince Eric had bought them a house in Miami. It was, on the women’s as well as the men’s side, high-octane sporty cocktail-wear for an optimistic future — hopefully only a few nautical miles away now. In all its sea-centric detailing, it also had its moments of ingenuity: micro-pleated dresses trimmed with twirly ruffles, which bounced like jellyfish in the waves walking down the runway; crazy cascading skirts layered like the lips of shells; and a bag constructed like a big fortune cookie. We could all do with some good luck these days.
Gucci: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/gucci
In episode three of Ouverture of Something That Never Ended, the miniseries that Gus Van Sant and Alessandro Michele codirected to promote the spring 2021 Gucci collection, the pop star and cultural avatar Harry Styles makes a cameo wearing a pink Gucci tee tucked into eco denim washed shorts. “When it comes to making art it’s about finding the thing you’ve always wanted to see that has never been made,” Styles speaks into a phone. “It’s always an uncomfortable moment, I think, when you find the thing. You don’t know if you love it or hate it because you don’t really know what it is yet. But I think that’s the most exciting place to work in.”
The words could’ve come out of his friend Alessandro Michele’s mouth this season. Faced with the impossibility of a runway show amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Gucci creative director organized a collaboration with Van Sant, a filmmaker whose circuitous, oblique storytelling he’s long admired. “I could see through his eyes,” Michele said at a joint press conference earlier this month. In a season of experimentation both analog and digital, Gucci’s project — 90 edited minutes shot in Rome over a period of 20 days — ranks among the most ambitious and the most esoteric.
The miniseries streamed on a dedicated site dubbed GucciFest, where the brand also supported videos made by 15 emerging designers from around the world. Both Ouverture and the platform the company created to showcase it, signify the shifting role of fashion brands mid-pandemic (and in the hypothetical post-consumer future, too). Gucci and its fashion company peers are no longer just product makers, they’re also content providers. Collina Strada’s Hillary Taymour, one of the designers Michele selected for GucciFest, crystalised the change that’s now in motion: “We’re still artists and people are still looking at what we’re going to do next,” Taymour told my Vogue Runway colleague Brooke Bobb. “But…there’s a way to create a more educational model or expressive model, rather than a product model.”
Though it’s considerably less elaborately plotted than that other fashionable miniseries that aired this week, The Crown, Ouverture’s impressionistic episodes are nonetheless highly watchable: Florence Welch gliding through a vintage store slipping handwritten notes into the pockets of jeans or the purse of a passerby…Billie Eilish frolicking with her pet robot dogs in what looks like the exurbs of L.A…the miniseries’ star Silvia Calderoni’s tour through Rome’s empty ancient streets by scooter at night…. Each of those vignettes charmed and in every scene the characters were wearing head-to-toe Gucci.
Does a seven-episode miniseries do the work of a 10-minute runway show, though? The reappearance of familiar looks from Michele’s Gucci debut circa 2015 might seem to suggest otherwise. (Certainly, the diffuse nature of the spring 2021 collections, which began in New York in early September and won’t wrap until early December when some of Michele’s fellow Kering designers launch their collections, makes the work that editors do of summing up the season’s overall fashion message more challenging.) Still, there are glimmers of something potentially game changing for not just Gucci, but also the industry in Ouverture.
What if these videos were shoppable? What if you could scroll over the faux-fur-lined loafers in episode three, Welch’s pleated lamé dress in episode six, or Calderoni’s three-piece suit in the series finale, and click to purchase? What if you could binge watch and buy at the same time? For years and years the industry has problematized the months’ long gap between runway shows and shipments, and the disconnection between desire and deliverability. These videos could solve for that. At the very least, they open the door to any number of additional collaborations between fashion and Hollywood. That’s an ouverture to get excited about.
Photo Research
Nov 16, 2020
Photos found on https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/celine, https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/gucci, https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/versace
Moodboard
Nov 17, 2020
Digital Sketches
Nov 23, 2020
Using the software InDesign, I created spreads for my magazine. I separated every page of text to at most two column reads so that it is easier for the audience to read but also added placements for images.
1:1 Feedback with Ji
Nov 24
During my feedback session with Ji, it was recommended that I start off with the placement of the found images before including the article text. This way I will know the size of the images and format my spreads from there. Also, I should also focus on the alignment and spacings of my text since my articles are very lengthy.
Digital Iterations
Nov 29
Some digital iterations I began to make were choosing the images and formatting my work. I chose fonts that the designer logos use and decided to go with one large image to represent the designers runway. I divided up the texts into columns and focused on getting rid of hyphens so that the legibility is more clear. Some questions I have is how I should make my text feel not too lengthy but also readable. Also, should I include more images?
Interim Group Critique
Dec 1
Some feedback that I got from the group was to focus on the legibility of the text. Since my articles are text heavy I should divide them up into columns so that it is easy to read and also titling the sections would help. It was recommended that I should also focus on using only one typeface throughout all the spreads so that it looks more cohesive. I need to assign page numbers to the master spread as well.
Design Updates
Dec 2
Research Updates
Dec 2
After making edits to my digital iterations, I realized that I didn’t like the photos and structure of Gucci’s article. I continued to do some research and changed Gucci to Fendi for the third magazine spread.
Fendi: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2021-ready-to-wear/fendi
This first real, live — and alive — show of Milan’s reawakening Fashion Week opened with prints of photographs taken during lockdown by Silvia Venturini Fendi from her bedroom window. It closed with Leon Dame and Paloma Elsesser amongst those swathed in snuggly satin quilting and pale lace embroidered linens. “This reminded me of Karl [Lagerfeld],” said Fendi pre-show: “He had a love for bed linen, he had a big collection.”
As well as emergence from lockdown, this collection marked a stage in Fendi’s transition from Karl, Silvia’s womenswear confrère for so many decades, to Kim Jones, her newly-elected brother in arms. Mid-chat, Fendi’s new womenswear creative director dropped in, to ciao. “I’m here to celebrate Silvia,” he said: “ I love this woman.”
Love was the common thread in a collection forged during the surreally intense domestic experience of lockdown. It saw past models, collections, concepts, and most definitely bags tenderly renewed, stories told afresh. All were presented with a fondness accentuated by recent absence, and (at least in the room) viewed that way too: before the show (distanced) benchmates shared their delight at being together here again (although afterwards we all ran off as usual).
The loungewear and pajamas and floaty wood-printed caftans had a follow-on relationship to last season’s ‘boardroom to boudoir’ collection; “but here,” said Fendi, “she was a little more… sweet.” Much of the collection was cut in barely-dyed but beautifully embroidered linen, a fabric Fendi said she had chosen thanks to its simplicity and sustainability. Runway bags ran from a sweetly naif rattan version of a child’s beach bag to a wicker picnic basket — SVF on its leather monogram tag — that was a nod to Fendi’s wonderful recent menswear ‘gardening’ collection. Cecilia Chancellor wore a jacket featuring trompe l’oeil embossed buttons that also glanced backwards at another collection dedicated to inversions in tailoring.
Prodigal accessory daughters were the Baguette and Peekaboo, incarnated in a host of collection-specific fabrications (shaved mink, braided ajouré, artisan-hewn bobbin lace, and fisherman-woven willow). Often these were presented with their own little offspring minibags, plus gloves, clipped to the side: All were shrouded in lace and linens like freshly christened infants. There were also sweet reprises for the Fendi x Chaos collaboration strapped to some looks.
Fernando Cabral, Karen Elson, Maty Fall, Ashley Graham, Eva Herzigova, Yasmin Le Bon, and Penelope Tree (so wonderful to see her in a show IRL) were all part of a cast as diverse as the swathe of reminiscence Fendi was mustering in this collection. Naturally there were some seriously savoir-faire saturated sections in fur. Maty Fall wore a loosely woven coat of nappa and mink over a floral-pressed romper, Vilma Sjöberg a dégradé coat of knitted fox, and Aliet Sarah an outrageous skirt of shaved mink ‘lace.’
As well as these key pieces of design furniture from the house of Fendi, Silvia offered access to the home of Fendi: Her invitation included a portfolio of family images, her grandmother’s lemon pesto recipe, and two packs of double-F logo pasta shapes by Rummo with which to try it. “I wanted to talk about values,” she explained. “At this time to just talk about fashion seems not enough. I wanted to talk about the values that are behind fashion, and I can tell you that there are a lot. In my family we have always put great meaning into what we do. Here I wanted to achieve clothes that are about the moment, but which also are part of your life, for your life.” By presenting clothes and accessories that whispered of past manifestations of Fendi’s history Silvia was also looking to a future in which garments function as cherished furniture, ever more redolent with memories and meaning in a long and fruitful life.
Digital Iterations Continued
Dec 3
For these digital iterations, I updated the Gucci spread to Fendi. I titled each article with the runway show titles and included the authors names. I played around with text styles and alignment as well. I used the typeface Optima (regular/bold) for all three spreads because I felt that this best represented all three articles in a more formal and classic style of Vogue Magazine. For the photos, I decided that using a full image on one side of the spread was a clean and more sophisticated look that represented the designer best.
1:1 Feedback with Anna + Miro
Dec 3
During my feedback session with Anna, we discussed changing up the alignments of the titles and paragraph legibility. I should focus on the consistency of the spreads and create more leading in between the lines.
Final Iterations + 1:1 Feedback with Anna
Dec 8
For my final digital iterations, I added captions, learned to override page numbers, and added colors/shapes to the whole spread to make it look cohesive and more formal to present. I was able to create changes to the leadings, font size, and margins so that the magazine wasn’t presented too text heavy but more legible. I planned out the same format for all spreads and created even spacings across each paragraph, header, subheader, and quote. For the cover page and last page of the magazine, I included a title and bibliography for my citations of my sources.
Final Result -Digital Magazine Vogue Runway
Dec 10
Vogue Runway is a digital magazine spread featuring designer Celine, Versace, and Fendi to show their upcoming Spring 2021 Ready-To-Wear fashion lines. These spreads include the back story of the designers creative idea and images featuring one of the looks from each collection.
Issuu Link
https://issuu.com/hannahh_kangg/docs/issuu_kang_cdf_f20_p5_magazine.pdf_
Reflection
Dec 10
I have learned a lot throughout this project. I am very proud of the results. There were a lot of technical processes that I learned by creating spreads. The alignments and sizing were keeping me off track into making an effective read however, by testing out sizings, alignment, color, separations into columns, and creating a cohesive bond to all 3 spreads, I learned that trial and error really make it possible. I also learned not to get attached to only one part of the work. In order for everything to work together the best, I have to edit according to what works best with the most difficult part of the project. For example, the Fendi spread had a lot of text in its content. I was worried it was hard to read and it wasn’t the most effective. However, through a numerous amount of iterations and playing with size, leading, and spacing, I was able to create a spread that I wanted. Based off of the Fendi spread, I created more changes to the Celine and Versace spread and the final product was great.
