ELLEN YOON

Integrated Design Program 2011

Spring 2011 Internship:W Magazine

Working in the Fashion Closet at W Magazine has been quite the experience. It is my first experience working at such a fast pace. It greatly enhanced my ability to learn faster, be more

efficient, and to multi-task with accuracy. Most of my time was spent receiving and sending back garments and accessories from PR companies, showrooms and designers, but what I enjoyed most was being able to interact and communicate with these PR companies, showrooms, and

designers. I had the pleasure of meeting some people who I have admired and been inspired by for years and those instances were the ones that made my time at W Magazine so memorable.

Being able to learn the infrastructure of such a well-established and prestigious magazine has inspired me to take what I have observed and learned to create some of my own spreads.

Although my aesthetic preferences are different from those of W Magazine, interning there has definitely pushed me to explore the page in term of layout and space.

I used photos and text from my thesis and experimented with space on page in the ways that I have observed from W to create a final portfolio of my experience at the magazine.

EASYPROLOGUE

EPILOGUE

CREATORINTRODUCTION

SPECTATOR

CREDITS

in my thoughts sink into a fog. The matters of my hands and

materials interchangeably blend into mere concept and the

only thing directly in my sight of consciousness is the rhythm

of my work: the steadiness of breath, the sounds of sewing or

cutting, the pauses when I hesitate or slow down to catch up

with my state of mind.

The process of creating is such a transcending

notion, that a simple retrospect is a frivolous speculation

of the manifestation. In order to understand what occurred

during such an illusory process, one must analyze and

connect the conscious and subconscious thoughts to the

final outcome, while also considering the physical process

that took place. It requires an objective venture into one’s

thoughts, history, and experiences, in relation to the present

circumstance. In connecting all the seemingly separated

elements, comprehension of what initially seemed impossible

to understand, ensues. For this reason, in order to have a more

profound awareness of my process, I separated the different

lineages of sub-processes that my mind innately follows

when creating garments. In the sub-processes, I take on three

different roles. I am a creator, a spectator, and a character.

The creator is an assertive position. One is able

to directly state a standpoint, similar to a way a speaker

communicates in first person, speaking for and about one’s

self. When a creator begins his or her process, the creative

direction is subject to his or her individualized choices, based

on past or current experiences and influences. By exploring

the role that is solely dedicated to the creator’s position, one

is able to connect personal references to the design choices,

in order to understand the reason behind those choices.

Ultimately, this reveals a historical perspective about the

creator, allowing one to connect experiences that may seem

irrelevant, to a product outcome, and see how they may have

influenced one another. This analysis gives a much more

comprehensive indication of a creator’s statement through the

creation.

The spectator can also be an assertive position,

because spectators are able to cast their own analyses and

perspective upon a piece of work. In this manner, one is

able to explore the role of the spectator in relation to the

creator. As a creator, one creates initially for oneself, taking

on a specific idea and position. However, once the work is

completed and presented, it adapts a new context because

then, in most cases, it becomes an object that can be viewed

and considered by others. The spectator can add his or her

position to the initial idea. Once the spectator becomes

involved in a piece of work, interaction changes the context

of the piece. Exploration of the role as a spectator is essential

because the relationship one has with his or her work once

it is completed, is different from the relationship one has

with it when it is still in creation. In a removed retrospect,

one can then connect the initial creation process to how it is

viewed it in its completion, to understand the discrepancies or

similarities.

The character is the most intriguing strain of thought

that is considered in the creation process. The character is a

creation itself, but it also embodies subconscious qualities of

the creator. Many times, the character, is whom the garments

are created for. When wearing certain garments, one may

take on a specific personality or specific characteristics that

are not necessarily representations of their daily self, but

manifestations of their subconscious self. In exploring the

character, one may realize certain subconscious thoughts that

come out in the form of a character. Because each garment

is created with specific philosophies and experiences, the

character incarnates a narration of those specifics.

In truth, I got lost in introspection. Upon realizing

that I could not grasp the process of my own work and the

stimulus behind it, I researched anything and everything to

rationalize it. I wanted to personally contextualize the vast

spectrum that encompasses the motives behind creativity and

creating. I wanted to understand how one interacts and reacts

to certain intrinsic and extrinsic qualities and experiences

that may lead one to a final outcome. However, even after

breaking down the process into three different roles, I found

that the only way to be aware is to actually engage in the

practice, while also being sensitive to the creator, spectator,

and character roles that I embody in the process.

CREATOR

CHARACTER

SPECTATOR

The creator is an assertive position, one is able to directly state a standpoint, similar to a way a speaker communicates in first person, speaking for and about one’s self.

The spectator becomes involved in a piece of work, interacting with it and changing the context of the piece. In an objective stance, one can connect the initial process to the outcome.

The character is a creation in and of itself, often incarnating conscious or subconscious projections of the creator.

A senior thesis project is a student's last given

opportunity to research and create work in an institutional

context. Ideally, it is a way to represent, reflect, or object to

the past years of one’s education. It is the final statement, the

last expression and impression made before a change of time

and place.

I spent the greater part of my year struggling to

find the best way to communicate the importance of my past

four years of college education into one, harmonized project.

I started off by asking myself a series of personal questions

that had indefinite answers and slowly I realized that I was

targeting the very root of my pursuit—the question of my

initial motivation to become a designer. Over the course of

time, be it out of mental and creative exhaustion, laziness

from apathy, or dissatisfaction from failure, I lost sight of the

eagerness that I once had to create. I could no longer relate

to that initial passion, and I realized that it stemmed from a

comprehensive lack of understanding my own work.

When I choose to create a garment, the desire to do

so comes with such sudden and urgent force, that if I do not

have the opportunity to drop everything at hand and work,

all is lost. The onslaught of such a feeling is what brings me

to an elevated state of mind; the immediacy of the impulse,

the rush of visuals, the excitement of a potential outcome.

I lose sight of the things around me, and the distinction

INTRODUCTION

I’ve recently become partial to fallibilism, the philosophicalprinciple, that human beings could be wrong about their beliefs ortheir understanding of the world, because although we can assumethings as knowledge based on experience and expectation, no knowledge can ever be rationally supported or justified in a conclusive way as truth. While it can be a cynical ultimatum, it doesn’t mean that I don’t believe or hope in anything, it just means that I’ve come to accept that whatever I believe or hope in, isn’t necessarily a truth. And for once in my life, I’m okay with that.

I’ve come to this conclusion after a subjective exploration of Buddhism, Protestantism, Existentialism, and Scientific Methodology, in that order. The commonality in all four, is the reoccurrence of slight changes in interpretation and meaning based on time and context, which in essence changes their entire philosophy, no longer making it any sort of constant or established truth— because people are too stubborn to accept anything the way it is; because everything in some way has to mean something specific and personal to someone, in order to be regarded as truth or profound.

And instead of becoming a pluralist and just embracing the good in all these beliefs, like the majority of my peers, (generated and influenced by the universalist-clusterfuck of “post-post-modern” thought) I realized the futility and blatant lack of tenacity in the idea of faith and the “margin of error” that these philosophies require. And if these widely acknowledged, established ideas of truth cannot rationally justify or support themselves except through the necessary acquiring of “faith” or embracing “the margin of error”, then I unabashedly account my fallibilism to my lack of persistence in figuring out what truth is as well.

EASYPROLOGUE

I am not abandoning every theory as false; I just believe that there is the possibility, that we could all be wrong about everything.

I moved out the following month to the far-away city I reside in now. I couldn’t stay in a room that still peered into hers. I couldn’t stay in a world where gravity was so grounding and numbing, when I had grown accustomed to a yonder-world where I was always floating.

It’s been about 3 years since I met Easy, but I still think about her from time to time. It is all in painful vain, as I knew so little about her. But I suppose I am happy knowing that she was once a presence in my life. She was a bullet that ended my bitter state of inertia, a wormhole that I welcomed. Instead of questioning and over-analyzing everything that happened with her or to her as I would have and could do, I’ll leave it at that. She was Easy. She was a 15 year old drug dealer who knew more about the world than I or anyone, for that matter, ever will. She was everything I wasn’t and everything I wanted to be. She was other-worldly, extra-dimensional, even. Yet, she was human. Just in the way that I sought comfort in my strange, removed relationship with those around me, she, as private as she was, wanted that relationship with me. She longed to be known and loved and to know and to love. She wanted to relate and engage, and exist in world other than her own. She was my neighbor, someone’s daughter and the only girl I ever loved. She made everything I once believed so resolutely, crumble. She proved to me that everything I begrudg-ingly held in self-righteousness could be wrong. And I thank God, or whoever, whatever, if anything is out there, for that. So here I am now, the most satisfied fallibilist, the most uncanny paradox one can ever meet, hop-ing to one day, out of marvelous chance, stumble across a wormhole that might lead me to her again.

EPILOGUE