Josephine Kim
Dress Up
Prompt: We were required to create a zine or a book out of any material of our choosing based on a meaningful topic of our choosing.
I used to dig through my mom’s closet and I loved stealing things to wear because it made me feel like an adult. I felt older and more mature in my parents’ clothes, as if the clothes themselves carried some of their grown-up wisdom. I found my parents’ shared closet to be the ultimate shopping mall, always stealing clothes when I was big enough to fit in them. Now, I wear my clothes to feel more connected to my parents. Whenever I miss them, I always have my mom’s long skirts and my dad’s knit sweaters to comfort me. Through this project, I wanted to show how people are connected to other people through 2 clothing. I included my friends and their personal stories of how they are connected to their relatives or friends through the things they wear, recollecting the memories they shared with those people. Each person’s unique experiences are also told through their individual languages, making it more personal. As for the process, I printed each image and text box and pasted them on paper scrapbook-style. I then placed a clear acrylic page in front of every image and created the clothes/accessories they mentioned through collage on top of the clear acrylic. The before images are intended to look child-like while the collaged clothes are meant to make them look more grown up, signifying that borrowing clothes from your parents made you seem more grown up. The collaged clothing was made using printed textures and various different 3D elements to make the jewelry or accessories.