Introduction

Hello everyone :)

My name is Larissa, and I am a senior at BASIS Tucson North. One of the great things that my school offers is the opportunity to participate in a Senior Research Project during the third trimester, and I've decided to take part in this. While I've spent a large amount of time in high school doing calculus homework, writing up lab reports, translating Latin and writing papers, I figured now would be the perfect time to finally pursue my interest in fashion.

I've always been interested in fashion, clothing construction and design, and when I modeled in Pima's 2014 fashion show, I was curious about how each article of clothing that went down the runway was viewed by the audience. Did the handmade pencil skirt that I wore influence a person's perspective on the piece because it was handmade, or did this not matter, because a pencil skirt can easliy be bought at a store? Similarly, in my photography class, I thought about how you could make your own photograph and hang it on a wall or just go out and buy an art piece to use as decor.

For this project, I plan on looking into how people view clothing differently when it is handmade versus when it can be bought in a store or manufactured. Over time, fashion has been reduced into something "easy" that can be put in a store to be bought, only to be discarded for a different trend. While clothing can still be created at home, the idea of making your own clothing has almost been abandoned due to the fact that it has become something that can be mass produced and traded. People don't have to consider how something is made when they can just buy it, and I want to see if this has caused handmade clothing to lose its value. I believe that this topic is important to look into because it addresses a sort of "artist's crisis." Some artists today beleive that their work and crafts are pointless because everything can just be bought at a store, making it so that handmade goods lose their value. I want to show that this is not the case and that self-designed creations still contain value despite the overgrowing power of the manufacturing industry.

I have two different internships that will help me learn both about the creation process of clothing and about manufactured fashion. I will work with a freelance artist, Nikki Bellio, who will aid me in creating my own pieces and in designing my own print and I will also work with a CAbi consultant, Kris King, so I can learn more about the manufactured clothing industry. I've just worked at one CAbi show and will soon be working at another one, and I will begin the creation of my own clothing articles starting with the pattern design. I'm excited to be working on this project and can't wait to begin the creation/design process and work another show!

Larissa :)