WAM:Which postcard and story are you taking as inspiration, and why?
EB: My inspiration for my piece was from Sleeping Beauty. Before this project, I had actually done an art project on the original story. Since I had a clear knowledge of the story, I wanted to be able to show the original story through my project. In the original story, Sleeping Beauty was sexually assaulted while she was asleep by the prince. She then fell pregnant and gave birth to triplets while she was asleep and woke up to three children.
Since in modern-day sexual assault survivors are very common, especially with women in college, I decided to focus on that and display the process of what a woman may go through when she is assaulted.
WAM: Tell us about your design process. Have you gone through multiple iterations or did you immediately know what you wanted to create?
EB: The design process was ever changing. I originally started with a long ball-gown-type dress where I had a completely different idea of how I was going to interpret my design. With critiques and self-assessment I went through many different stages of ideation. One major example is the change in how I was going to interpret the story itself. Originally, I was only going to display the assault, rather than show the transformation and how she reclaims the horrible event. Throughout this process it has been amazing to freely explore a new way of constructing a garment, rather than the traditional way of using only fabric. It has allowed me to discover that I personally enjoy creating one-of-a-kind pieces rather than something that can easily be reproduced. This entire project was freeing.
