For my senior thesis, I have decided to focus on introducing spirituality into everyday dress. I looked to my religious Jewish background to find a way to do this in a way that made sense for me. Through extensive research, I learned about tekhelet, which is a blue dye used in ancient Mediterranean times. While no longer seen today, the dye, which is extracted from a specific snail found in the Mediterranean sea, was used to dye garments that were meant for ancient rituals and was considered a prized commodity. This dye, while no longer used, is still considered a vital part of many rituals in Judaism, specifically garment-based rituals that are performed exclusively by men. By using the idea and history of tekhelet in my womenswear thesis collection, I am attempting to institute a sense of spirituality and obligation into women’s dress, which I believe plays an important roll in the influence of what we wear. 

While my tekhelet research was the catalyst for my collection in terms of inspiration, I was primarily designing for women of Jewish faith, or other faith. Originally, I wanted to do a collection based on modest womenswear. This research was more introspective; trying to figure out what modesty meant to me socially and within the context of my religion. I focused on my own background, wanting this collection to pay homage to the community that raised me. I spoke with relatives about what modesty means to them and how they determine what they wear. While doing this research, I felt a little lost; these things were important to me, but would the idea of modest womenswear make for a full, truly all-inclusive collection? I wanted to develop silhouettes that were modest, but not necessarily modest just to religious Jews. My version of modesty was different from my more religious relatives, and I wanted to be able to represent both sides. I also didn’t want to confine the idea of modesty to just my, or their, ideals. So I chose to focus more on the spirituality aspect of my collection. Once I made this decision, my garments started to take shape more. Changing from a religious point of view to a spiritual point of view helped me determine the exact techniques I was going to use. 

Knowing that I wanted to do my whole collection in 100% natural fibers, I decided wool would be my best option, considering that the tzitzit strings that are meant to be dyed are made from spun wool. I played with different methods of manipulating knitted wool yardage and tried using jacquard and illustrator-made spiral prints (inspired by the shell of the snail). Finding these to be too derivative and forced, I started to focused more on the development of my patterns, making them simple yet sophisticated, with interesting lines and detailing. I also took to focusing on knitting my own yardage on the Dubied machines in school and the Shima Seiki machine that is offered in the making center at Parsons. In the end, I decided the best way to illustrate my concept would be to use an alternate blue dye, indigo, which is closely related to tekhelet in its chemical makeup. I used an indigo sugar vat to slowly instill color into otherwise white and off-white garments, establishing a sense of spirituality leaking into otherwise lackluster, “meaningless” garments. 

For my outcomes, I have a 5-look collection with a small jewelry line, a portfolio book and look book, and an extensive textile book, showing how I made yardage on the Dubied machines, the stitches I ended up using, as well as my knit and woven patterns. Throughout my process, I have truly learned the value of putting time and effort into creating every aspect of a collection yourself, and learned many new skills along the way. I hope that my collection will inspire other women to find a sense of deeper spirituality and meaning in what they wear and, more so, find what is most important to them.