Research
Personal Research
Growing up, I struggled to find my true self as I was exposed to two completely different cultures. I was raised by Korean parents with traditional ethics, but all my education and social life was based from my American cultures. When I am with my Korean friends, they would say that I am too American, while my American friends would say I am too Korean, which is both true; however, there was a phase where I had to transform myself alternatively to blend into each atmosphere and culture. I have came across a cultural identity crisis as I tried to find my true self. Now I realized that this is my true self and allowed myself to embrace both cultures that have shaped me into who I am today. I wanted to bring this personal experience into this bag collection of bringing two different cultures merged into a harmonized design.
Scholar Research
Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) Living in New York City, a melting pot, so many people grew up having more than one cultural backgrounds. So I conducted a research about how having more than one cultured backgrounds can affect people. One of the key research was bicultural identity integration (BII), which is a chart that shows how having two cultures correlate to defining one's identity. The chart concludes that there are two distinctive reactions, "alternative" or "fused." The alternative mode of people shift between their two cultures in accordiance with the situation, whereas fused bicultural people subscribe to a third culture, created by mixing their two cultures. These two modes explain my own personal journey to find myself within two cultures.
Conclusion from this Research Because I was able to integrate my own personal journey into a documented research of "BII" I placed myself on a scale of "alternative" mode and "fused" mode, and realized that I am completely in between the two as I convert myself according to more appropriate cultures situationally, but I consider myself to be merged self of embracing both cultures. This conclusion guided my design approach to fuse both cultures to represent where I stand as a completely in between.
Cultural Research
Using my personal experience that could be described through a more scholarly research of BII chart, I decided to create a bag design that could equally represent both my Korean cultures through traditional designs and American cultures through modern designs. In order to merge the two aspects, I combined a traditional Korean hand muff and a modern bag to create a one harmonized design that could have a dual functionalities. This required more in-depth research about how handwarmers and bags worked to successfully bring them together. Another research I conducted was a traditional Korean symbols, and found out that "durumi," crane in Korean, was used frequently as a decorative designs as embroideries and other crafts. Korean artisans in the past used crane to symbolize "harmony," which I believed could be a perfect symbol to represent my identity to accept the harmonized self.
Concept
Concept | Customer | Color
Ideation
Initial Sketches & Samples
I conducted series of different styles of bag that can successfully excute both functions of a bag (modern culture) and a handwarmer (traditional culture). I sketched few variations that was a waist belt style, calm style, and rolled style. After sketching, I came to a conclusion to finalize my design with a cylindrical shape that both has a bag pouch compartment on the top and hand compartment on the sides.
Next step after I decided my bag shape, I moved on to initial sketching of the design elements with the gathered researches. Using some of the Korean traditional designs, such as knotting method, delicate embroidery, I had to find a way to synthesize them to make it modern to fit my thesis of representing my "fused" and "alternative" identity.
One of the many Korean traditional crafts is a knotting art. Korean artisans created many decorative knots to for ornaments on their clothes, accessories, and interiors. The beauty of Korean traditional knots was that they are all created by one single step, meaning a design is created by one knot. I particularly practiced two types: Garakji Knot and Obul Garakji Knot, to include into my bag collection. Obul Garakji Knot (flower looking) to replace a plastic stopper on drawstrings, and Garakji Knot (ball looking) to represent the eyes of the crane.
In order to represent the modern sides of my identity, I decided to create a pattern using my brand logo. By repeating SYJ, initial of So Young Jang, I created a pattern to print on a fabric that will be the bag pounch inside my leather bag. SInce, the pattern is part of the bag, the modern identity, I used color schemes that you can find in a Korean traditional architecture to balance out two cultures.
Technical Flats
Below the technical flats of each bag design to show every measurements from all sides: top, bottom, front, side, back. Although the cylindral shapes remain throughout the designs, every bag has a different design elements and techniques to make them so details of the measurements vary.
Sampling
For the next step, I made prototypes and samples of the design elements, before moving on to make the actual samples of the bags. First, I made the shape with a paper to place the technical parts of where the bag and hand components would be placed. Then I moved on to making them using heavy weight muslin to figure out the seams and overal sizes and functionalities. After, I made small samples of the design elements to see which fleece to use inside for the hand warmer, and embroideries.
I printed the patterns I have ideated above on a silk charmeuse fabric. I wanted to use this fabric for the inside pouch compartment, so hen the bag opened, the prints show. Another place I would use it would be behind the leather cutout piece of the Korean traditional pattern to represent the harmony of both cultures. Below is the three steps of how digitally designed pattern was printed on the fabric, then applied into the bag.
3D Rendering
I made prototypes and samples of the design elements, before moving on to make the actual samples of the bags. First, I made the shape with a paper to place the technical parts of where the bag and hand components would be placed. Then I moved on to making them using heavy weight muslin to figure out the seams and overal sizes and functionalities. After, I made small samples of the design elements to see which fleece to use inside for the hand warmer, and embroideries.
Final Prototype
