sherrysicle
ho swee chin
ho swee chin’s portfolio
222 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
slimy-vore-bog
TITLE UNLOCKED: Fucker
ozonecologne
hummingbird under the streetlamp
herkessahte
İsimsiz
komahibiki
KOMAHIBIKI 1127s
thatdambcat
Untitled
Text
on bows etc.
2023 was the year of putting bows on everything. Labels like Sandy Liang gained immense popularity and designers charged extra for tying ribbons onto everything from bags to jeans. Like many other trends, this was popularised on TikTok, with millions of videos of bows tied on everything from toilet bowls to the muscled arm of someone’s boyfriend.
A year later, most people have moved on. But what seems like just another microtrend on the surface is really just a part of a larger story in fashion, and coquette, the style the trend originated from.
I’ve been around long enough to remember it being popular on Tumblr where it went by “nymphet”, famously from Nabokov’s Lolita. Teenage girls would post carefully curated pictures of cherries, heart-shaped glasses, and retro summer outfits of gingham and denim, along with musings about older men and Lana Del Rey lyrics. The style was very centered around the 1997 adaptation the book, with an obsession around american symbols and being a young, teenage girl. This was until the platform’s NSFW ban, where the tag was banned and users came up with dolette and the more popular coquette, also distancing itself from the controversial novel and film.
With its new name christened, coquette continued on, but it was undoubtedly changing. Many of the original members, now grown up, had mostly abandoned their blogs. Its new home on TikTok, Pinterest and Instagram were more image based and less community focused, so its original culture had been lost. Interestingly, this parallels alternative subcultures. Punk was a movement about primarily music and being anti-establishment, which led to styles like goth and grunge which largely lost the political aspect, or even steampunk and mall goth which is solely fashion based.
Many people look at coquette’s evolution (or devolution, depending on who you ask) negatively. As more people adopted this aesthetic it has lost cultural currency and its status as a niche community. The term itself has been diluted to the point of meaninglessness, and is a catch-all term used to describe an impossibly broad range of feminine aesthetics, from dark and ironic waif style to bright and shiny y2k inspired fashion or even blokette, which adds the contrast of masculine athletic gear.
However, this might not necessarily be all bad. The expansion of what it means to be coquette also means more people are welcomed to this once almost exclusively thin, white, teenage style. 20 somethings wishing to reconnect with their girlhood are dressing in delicate pinks, and as an Asian woman I’ve never felt more included. Original coquette blogs also frequently included posts encouraging disordered eating, and problematic messages romanticising age gap relationships with minors, which was very damaging to the impressionable girls who made up the community.
What remains constant however, is the appreciation of the hyper-feminine in a world that often prioritises the masculine. Whatever you call it, and in every reiteration of the style, I will always be inspired by coquette and numphet aesthetics, and I, for one, will be keeping the ribbons in my hair.
0 notes
Text
on feminism in my designs.
I always try to say something with my work as I believe that fashion is inherently political, especially when I’m designing womenswear as a female designer and all the creative directors in major fashion houses are still men.
Feminism has been a consistent theme throughout my work, like my collection exploring ideas surrounding modesty. Women are judged and shamed for not covering up, sometimes even being prosecuted and assaulted, but society also glamourises dressing provocatively, so when you wear a miniskirt are you objectifying yourself and playing into male fantasies? Even when you make a choice in what you want to wear, that choice was made with years of conditioning by the patriarchy, and as Margaret Atwood famously said “you are your own voyeur”. As a woman it is impossible to dress completely for yourself which fascinates yet terrifies me at the same time, so my collection is about the different ways that people both cover and expose themselves.
Another feminist issue I am passionate about is inclusivity and body neutrality. As a woman of colour who is a size extra large, I often feel excluded from the fashion industry. I cannot even fit into my own garments I have made for school as they have to made according to sample sizes or I would be marked down. Now you may be thinking, why not body positivity? Although I agree that we should abolish traditional beauty ideals I also believe that being attractive should not be the end goal and we should decenter ourselves from the idea that we have to be pretty. As women, why do we have to be beautiful? Why do we have to be fat and Hot? Why do we have to be Asian and Sexy? Can we just be fat and Asian and average looking, or god forbid, ugly?
This is why my recent diploma graduate collection Arthropette tells the story of four insects that decorate themselves with feminine and frou frou bows in spite of their creepy and grotesque appearance. It was important to me to include the insect themes in my collection, to embrace the disgusting, but also explore a range of sizes and have inclusive casting during my photoshoot. I wanted to send the message that everyone, no matter their body or ethnicity, should be able to experience the joy of dressing up and expressing yourself, and to adorn themselves with large bows even society views them as ugly.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
home, a spread i made for my magazine club!
1 note
·
View note
Text
was accepted into FIT!
0 notes
Text
top i made!
1 note
·
View note
Text
my graduate show <3
1 note
·
View note
Text
accepted fashion institute of technology portfolio, sportswear coordinates assignment.
#final designs#2024#illustration#ideation#fashion design#fashion illustration#fashion institute of technology
1 note
·
View note
Text
me & my arthropettes
1 note
·
View note
Text
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
film i made for my collection arthropette!! music @marsargo
0 notes
Text
My collection “Arthropette” tells the story of four insects that decorate themselves with feminine and frou frou bows in spite of their creepy and grotesque appearance, making a statement on body neutrality and rejecting the cliché of “lipstick on a pig”.
So what if you think I’m ugly? I’ll adorn myself with bows regardless.
2 notes
·
View notes