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For my three capsule outfits I first got my inspiration from the samurai armor on the Victoria & Albert museum website. I really loved the heavy layering of the outfits and the strong armor. I really liked the shapes the outfits gave the men who wore them, it made them look strong and fierce. I wanted to bring all this into my designs but I wanted to give it a bit of a feminine touch, so I decided to mix together the idea of a Japanese warrior with a geisha, to get the soft elegant touch. I also was inspired by Gareth Pugh’s work, and his use of dark colours, structure and armor like fabrics.
For outfit 1 I wanted to create a feminine shape with a nipped in waist, so I created really big sleeves that fell into a point at the waist to accentuate the female figure. I made the shoulders large to give it the Japanese warrior armor look, and I added separate slates of a thin metal all linked by chain to make it look like a battle suit. Japanese farmers straw hats inspired the helmet, yet I added the horns to give it a warrior feel.
Outfit 2 is my favorite out of the three. There is a lot of armor in this one, again focusing on the shoulders. I also added armor to the skirt because the samurai armor is heavily focused there. I gave the outfit a high neck as a form of extra layering. I thought this looked like the upside down idea of a helmet. My favorite part of this outfit are the long sleeves. Geisha’s used to have floor length sleeves and I thought adding it to the outfit gave it a sort feminine touch. The little cap on her head was inspired the hats they wear in the film ‘House of Flying Daggers’. I really loved how cute and Japanese they looked.
My final outfit, Outfit 3, is another figure accentuating outfit. Again heavily shouldered and heavily layered. This outfit has an angel of death feel that the others don’t have as much. I added a strong wide upper torso top to make it seem strong and shielding. The skirt is a full skirt with leather panels to look the armor. Again I added the long sleeves, which in this, I thought, looked more eerie which gave a nice feel. My favorite part of this outfit is the headwear. It is heavily inspired by Gareth Pugh’s spring 2007 collection. I love the whole head covering with the high ponytail. It’s very dark and gothic, yet has a feminine shape, which the high ponytail.