a i d a n r a e

behold: the worst photo i will ever put on this blog

I just can’t be bothered to pull out my camera for one picture.. yay windows phone!

But lets talk about how Astro Boy’s going to have a glowing reactor!

It’s a bit thick.. I might want to pad out Lo’s chest with some foam or something so it’s doesn’t appear as bulky, but I probably won’t do that for Halloween due to time constraints. I still want to pad his forearms and perhaps make the laser his hand turns into, but we’ll see. All three of those things might become adjustments for ECCC.

(It’s pinned onto the shirt, which is stuffed in a pillow)

020: Rambling

i’m having difficulty deciding on how historically accurate i want the nerfpunk piece to be, and how much leeway I want to give myself to have something finished soon.

i’m thinking that i might make a simpler version for steam-con and then, perhaps, modify or recreate it into something more complicated and time consuming, because the ideas that i have are just not coming together fast enough for a convention in like, two weeks. and i don’t want to rush myself, either, since i want this to be a piece i can use in my portfolio, instead of everything else i’ve done this year, which has been on barely-attainable deadlines.

a simpler version would be more steampunk and less victorian, just by nature of the fact i could stop working on a collapsible bustle and all the other framework i’ll need underneath the garment, and focus on the the visual layer. Reuse old corsets and things like that.

Ugh.

Just got back from a trip to NYC though - got lots of new fabrics to explore with!

this is the fabric i got earlier..the colours match! it’s just my bad camera phone…

will post in progress photos soon :) and i will have an update on the Halloween commissions soon, I promise.

Anonymous asked: Hey- Are you thinking of providing this service for children who are a severely autistic or suffer from autism-spectrum disorders? While some of them may not care about fashion, easy on/off clothing can be useful for parents and/or babysitters. This can be especially problematic because many children suffering from mental or developmental issues tend to be larger than non-sufferers of the same age group.

The problem is that using the term “sensory-aware clothing” or something similar is almost a blanket term, isn’t it? Vast. There’s so many spokes off that one idea, and about a dozen different directions it could be taken. I’m hoping that my research, interviews and parent/child questionnaires will help me find a way to and organize some of these specific concerns into similarity groups or categories, almost (for lack of a better word), and move forward from there.

So ideally, yes, but not exclusively necessarily.

Basically what I am saying is that kids as you are describing, severe ASD, possibly larger, who can overpower their caregivers easily and therefore make dressing that much more complicated - their priority of course is not fashion. Accessibility certainly is. Functionality. Comfort. All in ways not necessarily addressed right now.

I want those things to be a priority, but I also want fashion included within that, because the audience I want to target is broader than just that half of the spectrum you’re asking about. I want it broader than ASD to begin with.

For example, what about the ASD kids who have similar clothing issues but can vocalize it? Who are aware of it, and notice how different it makes them from other kids? Having to choose functionality over fashion is, obviously, not the end of the world, but for a middle-schooler struggling to fit in even just a little more, it might seem like it. And really: why should they have to choose one over the other?

When you have a child who is apathetic toward the appearance of what he wears, the importance turns to the parents’ issues, the parents’ struggle to get clothing on their kid. And I want that to be addressed.

But what about the high-functioning kid that doesn’t want to stand out more? Who wants/needs the assistance - like weights in his clothes - but doesn’t want to deal with the questions? I want that to be addressed, too.

Lets face it. Kids are cruel. We want our kids to stand up for themselves and not to be ashamed of what makes them different (or not), and we want to teach our kids good values like how appearance is not everything, but middle school is tough. It’s tough for any child. The struggle over clothing shouldn’t be adding to it.

My hope is that the clothing issue that a parent of a neuro-typical child has, is going to be similar to the issues of a parent with an ASD child. I mean ultimately, if a parent is talking to me, it bogs down to one thing: there’s something missing from the fashion industry right now for their kid. They want their kid, neurotypical or otherwise, to wear something without fussing, without tearing it off immediately, without an epic battle every school-day morning. They want something to change.

I don’t think that it will all work out. I don’t think the numerous concerns will all overlap and I certainly don’t think that it’ll be easy to pick which ones to begin with, either. Finding the ones that will cover as much ground as possible, include as many of these kids as possible, and going off from there, is probably the best way for me to start.

Man, I hope this was at all close to an answer you’re looking for. I want to make sure that as I develop this - because it’s going to take awhile - that an open line of communication will remain between me and the parents/caregivers giving input. Because ultimately, I know what works best for the kids I work with and them alone, right?

That’s not the majority. It’s not even close to the minority.

A back and forth conversation and discussion about the things we’re thinking of, or the clothes I’m prioritizing will be important, toward making sure kids across the complete Autism Spectrum, for example, are all getting their needs met as much as possible.

019: Project Rapidfire & Halloween Commissions

I figure, while I’m on a Tumblr roll I might as well make a list of the things you’ll be seeing on this blog over the next month or so, or you know, whenever I have the energy to make this blog into something other than dusty.

The commissions for the Halloween showdown are as follows:

Lo has requested an Astro Boy costume. This will be an interesting undertaking, as he has refused to wear the jumpsuit Astro wears when he’s playing with other kids, and opted instead to demand the hotpants ensemble everyone my age knows very well (those his age is another story). My best solution for this is a nude-coloured suit similar to the Nightwing costume of last year. Since we’re making the suit already, I figured it might as well be useful to incorporate it into the costume. That is, adding joint seams at the elbows and knees, as well as the little box at his chest for the glowing blue core.

The hardest part, I imagine, will be his hair.

A has chosen to be Speedy, aka Red Arrow, aka Roy Harper, Green Arrow’s sidekick (a clear sign that I’m more of an influence than I really intended on). I had anticipated him choosing Captain America or Green Arrow, as the pair of them are his favourites currently (after Robin oh god always the Robin love), and I’m pretty glad he chose neither because yiiiikes those costumes would be a production. He chose the Titans: Year One costume, which is pretty similar to the Young Justice TV series costume, so it should be relatively straight-forward.

The hardest part will be his hat, I think. It’s a very strange shape at the front.. but details will be forthcoming on their individual posts. I’m pleased; each boy chose a costume similar to last year’s, pattern-wise, so I’m hoping i’ll just have to adjust and modify their old patterns to account for their growth.

The littlest commission is a secret one, and one I can’t post about because her mother follows my blog, but I’ll be posting hints along the way. I will say, however, that Lo & A were with me buying fabric for it and A figured out the costume before I told him at all, so it probably won’t be a secret for very long… darn!

PROJECT RAPIDFIRE is my steam-con/portfolio project. I spend so much time rushing through things and after spending so long on C’s Joker ensemble, I decided I wanted to work on something for my porftolio within the same regard. A complex, detail-oriented victorian-style outfit that I can use at Steam-con even before it’s finished, and then expand upon over the next couple of months, until I have a garment worth placing in a portfolio (It seems strange putting someone else’s character into my portfolio, even if I made it from my own patterns). I hope to be deciding colours and silhouette this week and purchasing fabric to accompany it.

And of course, my Big Project is still going on. I imagine I’ll be compiling research for awhile, so I don’t feel too guilty about the halloween and portfolio sidetracks. I think that after Halloween, during a lull in costume-making, I can focus completely on furthering this idea. Until then, I have been making outlines and planning in that regard, so things will hopefully be furthered along regardless.

Probably I should have started with this, but THANKS SO MUCH to all the new followers over the past couple of days! Your interest and support is really amazing and makes me even more excited to work on developing this idea. <3 <3 <3

018: The Big Project

As I mentioned when I first started this blog, while I am a fashion design major, my main source of income at this moment is working with a set of ten year old twins. I got this job two summers ago, when I first moved out here with an unpaid internship & needed a job that didn’t require me to pull a five day workweek. I got this job in particular because I’ve spent a lot of time working with special needs children.

The internship ended; I kept the job.

One thing I’ve learned in the past two years is that there is an utter lack of fashionable clothing for children with sensory issues. I mean, scratch that. There’s a significant lack of clothing for children with sensory issues period. That is, children who can’t handle things like a fly front or zipper against their skin. Or fabric that’s too stiff, doesn’t breath right. Too tight, too loose. The complaints are endless. And it’s not just special needs children that have these issues.

Of the few companies that do target this interest, their clothing lines stop at size 7, or 8-10.

This is pretty typical of any company. It’s rare that a company makes clothing for a child’s entire growth into adulthood. There’s a variety of reasons behind that, but it’s usually separated by three or four categories:

• infancy - toddler
• toddler - child
• pre-teen (sometimes)
• teenager

I haven’t been intensely researching for a very long time, but I have been searching for clothing that is BOTH fashionable AS WELL AS comfortable for A (Robin) and there is really not much out there, especially because A is on the cusp of leaving “child” targeted clothes, and entering the next size up - pre-teen.

What would you do if your child couldn’t wear jeans? Forget about itchy wool, what if your kid couldn’t deal with cotton? You send him to school in sweat pants and a nylon top and it doesn’t match, but it’s okay because it’s the only thing he wears without a fit. Let’s not even get into what you do in the winter, when every coat on the planet is too restricting. that’s fine when they’re little (except it’s not), but what about when they are old enough for their peers to notice this? call them out on it?

how is that okay?

Oh my god. At a time when appearance couldn’t be considered any more important to a child, I’ve found that there’s a significant LACK of clothing options AT ALL for these kids.

I think I’m going to do something about it. Or at least, try to. This is precise the worst time for project ideas to begin to develop, with Halloween and costume commissions, but it is a project I feel strongly about and think will take a lot of time to develop. More time than Halloween ideas. It’s something that is probably more important than Halloween ideas, but I do get caught up in that holiday…. hah.

So…. here we go.

If any of you know any parents with kids they have to fight into clothing, you should get a hold of me. message my ask box  or submit, with their email included; also facebook or, if you already have my email, that way works as well. I have a questionnaire for them; soon I will set up an email solely for this, but I’m still working the kinks out on it, however.

http://aidanrae.tumblr.com/ask

http://aidanrae.tumblr.com/submit

THANKS!