After the popular rise of the Barbie movie in the fashion world, Har-Ber created an assignment in their fashion merchandising class that combines design and culture. The Barbie movie incorporates many jobs and decades that women have the power to do, and this fashion class used this as inspiration.
“Me and my partner did the 1800’s and we researched 1800’s fashion,” Senior Kinley Cobb said.
Cobb and her partner Orianna decided to pick the 1800s and design a Barbie outfit that looked like the clothing from this decade. They chose this time period because they were interested in the style of long thin skirts, and high waisted gowns.
“We pleated most of our dress and then we had a slip in the front, where there was another piece of floral fabric behind it,” Cobb said.
According to Cobb, floral was a very popular pattern in this decade and was the reason why they used it in their design. Her and her partner made sure to use layers when building this dress to fully match the look of their inspiration dresses.
“We used new fashion books that the school library got in, and then we relied on many websites to help us with other aspects of the design,” Junior Orianna Black said.
In preparation to build their outfit, Black and Cobb had to first research materials and patterns used in the 1800s to figure out how to design their dress. With help from different library books, they were able to identify not only the colors and styles of the dresses, but also the unique textures. After spending time researching, they then collected their materials and started to build their dress.
“For making it we used an iron, fabric scissors, as well as old fabric scraps that Miss Bunch had and some hot glue as well,” Cobb said.
According to Cobb, being able to use their materials and turn them into a piece of clothing was the most exciting part. This project allowed Cobb to use her creative skills, and when putting all of her materials together, she got to sew for the first time.
“This project was really fun because it was super hands-on,” said Black “It was really fun to be able to take things around the classroom and make something out of nothing,” Cobb said.