The 70s in the UK were a time of social unrest that turned many youth onto an attitude of rebellion. In stark contrast with the love ethos of the 60s, the 70s economic downturn left many outraged and with the need to express their dismay. This “anti” attitude would bleed into many aspects of culture like the emerging fashion of the decade. Youth subcultures were a place for young adults to find solidarity. Punk trends including leather, safety pins, distressed clothing and denim. The Sex Pistols rocked the music industry leading way for other like The Clash and Joy Division to join the scene. With records such as ‘God Save the Queen’, the Pistols cemented the new culture movement as politicized. As the decade continued Punk became more intensified; becoming its own subculture of both street style and high couture.

As a fashion design student with career interest in design and costuming, I decided to design and build a Ready-to-Wear collection for my senior thesis. The steps to build a collection include: concept research, initial concept sketching, create a moodboard and colorboard, select textiles/sourcing textiles, finalize sketches, create technical flats, patternmaking and draping, testing and swatching design details (such as embroidery, seam and construction details, finishes/trims), sewing mock-ups/toiles, and finally construct the garments in the fashion fabrics. Due to my collection being featured in the ASU Spring 2022 fashion show there were some additional steps I took to finalize this collection including: model sourcing, fittings, alterations, and hair and makeup conceptualization for the show. I began conceptualizing this collection in the fall of 2021 and began sewing in January 2022. The ASU fashion show was March 26, 2022. I found inspiration for this collection from my love of tattoo art, specifically by the history and imagery of American Traditionalism tattoo art around the turn of the 20th century. As an avid fan of tattoo art, I have become more appreciative of tattooing as a pure form of art and the elements required to have a well done American Traditional style tattoo. Such elements include: contrast, shadows, clean line work, as well as perception/silhouettes. This type of classic tattoo art also involves heavy symbolism, mostly derived from animals and the ocean. An additional concept I am applying to my collection is corsetry, specifically in the style of the early 1900’s. This time period is cohesive with the tattoo era I am focusing on, as well as it is the era that corsetry began to include decorative elements in addition to being for structural and shaping purposes. I began to have an interest in corsetry from my love of complicated construction, as well as costumery. I feel like corsets as an outer layer is a great way to incorporate costumery into a traditional Ready-To-Wear-Collection. I have decided to apply tattoo art in multiple ways to my collection- the first within my colorways. American Traditional tattoo art at the turn of the 20th century only used black, green, yellow, and red ink. I plan to utilize these colors in the corsets only. The modern and classic silhouettes utilized in the base clothing will be in various shades of browns and tans in order to represent skin tones, therefore the corsets are the “tattoos” on the “skin”. The tattoo art will be applied further within the corsets, as I will be using the classic imagery/ symbols as decorative features on the corsets- done possibly with beadwork, embroidery, and paint/ screen printing. I hope to mostly utilize natural fiber-based textile for their sustainability purposes, such as wool and silks. However, any synthetic materials will be sourced from deadstock in order to still hold myself accountable to sustainability.