Designs for Childrens Costumes:

I have been drawing up designs for some child friendly costumes that can be made quickly and cheaply and versatile so they can been worn on a one size fits all basis. The foundation of the designs is African style clothing that embodies elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth.

I began by researching into symbols and motifs that represent the four elements, so I could use them as a start point o basis my designs around.

Element Motifs

 I wanted all the costumes to follow a similar theme, but with subtle changes in colour and style. The basis of all the costumes is a T-shirt and drawstring or elasticated shorts. Part of the design requirements were to have coloured ribbons trailing from arms, tied around the wrists and sewn into the sleeve of the T-shirt. 

The Fire element costume has a base colour varying in shades of red, orange and yellow with a black printed fire motif on the breast and thigh. Both the top and shorts have an irregular jagged hem line to suggest the movement and shape of flames. I decided that the ribbons show also be of irregular lengths and varying in colour to again suggest flames.

Fire Costume

For the design for the Air element costume I wanted to try and capture an element of wind and the lightness of air. I gave the costume an A symmetric hem along the bottom of the T-shirt and the shorts. I also used a line of smaller air motifs that could be printed down the outfit. These possibly need to be more dramatically placed around the body to greater enhance the idea of wind and movement. I also gave the arm ribbons and irregular curved hem line.

Air Costume

 The water element costume is based around quite a loose free flowing theme with a curved hem and a large printed motif across the chest. I choose curves to suggest waves and flowing water which I used in both the hems and the ribbons. I found this element quite a difficult one to design as water is so free and my style of design is so controlled I find it hard to be loose and flowing with my drawing.

Water Costume

The earth costume I based around solid lines and squares to show the stability and strength of the ground. I similarly wanted to show this through the colours. The earth motif is bold and square, so I wanted this to emulate out with the hard lined strips of colour, straight hems and ribbons.

Earth Costume

I also thought that a transfer printing technique that we used in Blood Sweat and Tears could be used on the base colours of each costume. Where a dye is painted onto a piece of paper and an item placed between the paper and the material under a hot press transfers the dye whist leaving a silhouette of the items. So the costumes have a subtle pattern.