POWER-PACKED BLACK

One of my last assignments before my final for fashion drawing was to create four looks only in black. Using only black is a challenge enough for some people! Black is difficult to make look dimensional and not just like a blob with no shadow or highlight to it. We also had to incorporate a number of different fabrics into our drawings. For me, another challenge was figuring out how to make black look dynamic and not like just another LBD! It was a great assignment because I had never thought about the shapes of light and shadow needed to convey a certain fabric. And I also loved this assignment because, for some reason, even though I love the color black and I wear it almost every day, I usually stray away from it in my designs!

I will only be showing off two of the four of my designs because our teacher wanted us to do half of our drawings in gouache and half in marker. It is just not worth showing off the gouache ones, they are nothing special!

The first one I drew utilizes black suiting fabric for the blazer top, velvet(with grey silk lining) cape, and the star of the show, black crocodile leather. I could have easily done regular leather and that would be quite the challenge to find all the highlights and shadows within the fluid fabric, but where’s the fun in that? The crocodile leather looked so beautiful and powerful. I definitely think this girl carries quite the sex appeal in a classy strong kind of way. I would not want to mess with her!

My second look was conceptually my favorite. I thought about different ways of showing black as more than just black. I was inspired by oil spills and the oil spill hair color trend. I thought it was such a cool concept to show black as containing a whole rainbow of colors. We think of oil as thick, gooey, and sticky, but it has such a beautiful quality within it. I wanted my model to look wet like she was emerging from a pool of oil. I captured the thick yet gooey quality of the oil by using a silk charmeuse material for the dress. I love how it just cascades down her body. I usually do not design a lot of evening wear, but I loved designing this gown. I wish that I could see some celebrity wearing a dress like this down the red carpet or to some fancy ball. It has a playful look while remaining classy and elegant.