Lee sighed as he tapped his coloured pencil against the desk thoughtfully. The culmination project for this assignment was challenging. He’d never been particularly into the design element of fashion design, though he’d certainly sewn some complex things before. Indeed his tutor had praised his technical excellency, the neatness of his dart placement, the beautifully overlocked hems… and then gone on in the next breath to remind him gently that he needed originality in his work, to push past the use of existing designs - he was good at matching pieces together, but it wasn’t what the tutor was looking for.
Privately, Lee thought true originality was a little bit dead. There was only so much you could do whilst keeping up with current fashion trends and influences, though…hmm, this assignment wasn’t current, was it? It wasn’t meant to be runway fashion. Huh. Suddenly inspired by this thought, he got to scribbling, sketching stuff he’d never normally consider. Maybe this is what the tutor had meant by pushing his boundaries.
A while (and a pile of paper and pencil sharpenings) later, Lee was pretty happy with the design on the paper. He’d been deep in the creative process, so he startled when a voice rang out - class wasn’t on at the moment, so he wasn’t really expecting company. Eyes flicking up he took in the appearance of the other person, and realised he didn’t actually….know who they were. That wasn’t necessarily surprising, as Lee wasn’t exactly the most social and didn't know a lot of his fellow students, but he was pretty familiar with most of the faces in the art department, and this…..was not one of those.
Still, they were complimenting his work, and they could be a professor or professor adjacent, being as they looked slightly older, so better to be polite. And also hey - free compliment! Lee’s eyes crinkled slightly as he semi-authentically smiled at them.
“Thanks. It’s been a struggle to be honest - most of my fashion design is either derivative if it’s following high fashion, or cosplay related. Coming up with original works of fashion has proved difficult.”
