Amber Li
Designing a comprehensive system to embody the work of the Courréges, fashion designers most known for their space-age designs of the 1960s; inventing the mini skirt and go-go boot; and their youthful, playful style. The system includes a poster, 16-page saddle-stitch booklet, ~1 minute animation, Figma prototype and website.
12 weeks
Ps, Ai, Id, Ae, Figma, HTML/CSS
Individual
Finding Footing
The first part of this project was creating a 24x36” poster that showcases a timeline of work as well as a portrait and quote from the designer.
This poster was the most challenging part of the project for me, and I later ended up coming back to redesign this from the bottom up as my system fleshed itself out and became stronger when designing the booklet and video. You can see my process for my first pass here.
The patterning in the COURREGES type was made through a shape packing algorithm in Processing and refined in Illustrator.
A story about love and women’s liberation through fashion.
This 16-page booklet guides through the evolution André and Coqueline, as fledgelings meeting in the Balenciaga atelier, marrying, and progressing to start their own brand. An emphasis is placed on the Courréges ethos and futuristic hopes.
The duo was very daring and progressive for their time of the 60’s; arguably the inventors of the miniskirt, their first show gained much press for the scandalous hemlines. They experimented with new synthetic sports fabrics and flat shoes to liberate women and their movement; started one of the first mass-produced fashion lines in order to democratize their designs; as well as embracing a diverse cast of models even unseen today.
This one-minute video, narrated by some lovely volunteers who speak French, further the idea of the Courréges’ Space Age dominance and their ethos on the female body.
Striking a balance between animated elements and footage was the main challenge. Making the video look curated instead of a reel of walking and dancing models, or just an animation-palooza that certainly could not have been possible in their time period were two paths that I knew I did not want to go down. My meet-in the middle approach involved lots of frame-by-frame halftones in Photoshop, rotoscoping, and animating photo/video elements, such as the repeating girls or the spin of the moon.
The full video can be viewed here
An interactive kiosk, such as found in museums. The user can look through some of the Courréges’ most famous works, a timeline of their lives and careers, and learn more about the duo.