Wearable Pop Art – Modern fashion meets bold aesthetic

Featured Image: Andy Warhol, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964)

 

To give a brief overview: This upcycled project will focus on using recycled, eco-friendly fabric swatches to make a collage style wearable or accessory in the Pop Art aesthetic. This will be a fun and interesting project that blends current fashion trends with the bold colors and textures of the Pop Art aesthetic from the 1950s. 

Ed Ruscha: Standard | LACMA

Above: Ed Ruscha, Standard (1966)

 

The Pop Art aesthetic is a very popular and recognizable style of media that began to appear in the 1950s. It became popular through post WWII advertising, a response to the different socio-political climate. It can be characterized by bold colors, textures and effective communication, especially with the infiltration of mass production and the ever growing consumerism based society. It most commonly appeared in magazine illustration, graphic design and many other forms of commercial art. Although Pop Art remains a 2D form of artistic expression, it can be widely applicable to tangible products and items like clothing and aesthetics.

If there is anything that is constantly being experimented with and ever evolving, it is fashion. For many people throughout all of time, fashion and the creation of wearables has been a form of expression in all styles and movements just like any fine art. Because of this, there’s always an opportunity to utilize the styles seen in paintings into different types of wearables. This is my ultimate goal for this project – taking a traditionally fine art style of Pop Art and fusing it with the types of wearables that exist in today’s fashion world.

Starting with material, since it needs to be uncycled, I have collected a large book of eco-friendly fabric swatches from a shop that was throwing out all of their old collections. It is filled with many different bold colored and textured fabrics, none of which are the exact same. 

Above: The fabric booklet and samples that I will be using

 

Leaning towards making a bucket hat, I hope to cut, collage and sew each piece together to create a final functional and fashionable) product. This will be my first exploration with other thoughts for alternate wearable items like a headband, earrings, scarf or other forms of accessories. This could include, but is not limited to a belt, small bag or wallet. There are many forms that the fabric and use of this aesthetic can take, but the ability to create a unique, identifiable personal item is the most important. 

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Above: Examples of products to make (Pinterest)

 

Sources: 

Wolf, Justin. “Pop Art Movement Overview and Analysis.” The Art Story, 2012. https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pop-art/

 

1 Comment. Leave new

  • Sofia Fernandez
    February 4, 2025 7:52 pm

    Hi Mia, I like your idea of making pop art-inspired fashion. I think a great inspiration you could try looking at is looking at fashion from the 60s. I know some designer pieces were directly influenced by pop art, and I feel like modern fashion has its influences based on it as well. I also think using the fabric swatches on a purse or wallet would be exciting because of how simple those daily accessories have become. Another good idea would be to get some iron-on interface for your design if sewing becomes too much because it’s beneficial when you can stick on small pieces instead of sewing.

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