Kejia Yan
Materiality
KejiaYan
kejiayan1030@gmail.com
@oldbissocool
-Thesis Statement
My thesis knitwear collection, "The Texture of Homesickness," is inspired by my own experience of homesickness as an international student. I stayed in NYC for my online classes during a year and a half quarantine. It was the first time I hadn't been home for so long. I missed my family and home back in China. My way of dealing with the feeling was going to the supermarkets to buy food and cook my grandmother's dishes. When I was in the supermarket, the smells of fruits, the texture of packages, and the colors of products on the shelf reminded me of home and family. I started to take photos from supermarkets to remember the particular time. When I finally got back to my hometown last summer, I took pictures from the farmer's market and supermarket where my mother and I usually buy veggies and food.
After the number of supermarket photos I collected, I began to see the differences and the similarities between markets here and back at home. I noticed that the display or arrangement of the fruits and veggies is way more dramatic and unrealistic to me. On the other hand, the markets in my hometown are way more down to the earth and organic. I started to draw from the photos I took here and back home to transfer the texture and visuals from the images into my simple 2d drawings. I used my knitting techniques to translate the drawings into knitting textiles with different shapes, colors, and structures. The initial development of my knit samples is the bases of my whole collection.
-Images to Drawing
The markets and fruit stalls in New York are always more enjoyable, with contrasting colors of fruits or veggies put together. The wraps, plastics, papers, and boxes make the stalls and markets more colorful.
- Yarn Analysis
At first, I experienced different kinds of yarns to mimic the feeling from the drawings. I used plastic yarns to create swatches with plastic sparkles. I tried to replace the plastic yarns with more sustainable choices, like natural fibers.
After more swatches with various exciting textures, I decided to keep my materials simple. I worked with wool yarns from jagger spun before, and they have great color selections in 100% organic wool yarns, which is excellent for most of my knits.
- Knit Swatches Development
1-Repetitive partial knitting technique with different colors of yarns to mimic the wraps.
The looseness of the bubble swatch.
2-The fair isle design is developed from squashes on the markets. The tightness of the squash print knit swatch gives me a feeling of warmth, just like home.
- Knit Swatches Development
3-The carrot hollow knit swatch is an experiment with long stitches and transferring needles.
4-The spikes from the cucumber are the inspiration for the braided straps dress. I mixed three colors of green to show the highlights of the spikes.
- Knit Swatches Development
5-The carrotscape knit swatch is inspired by the acrylic painting I did base on the carrots sold in the union square. I use the short-rowing technique with random colors and row counts to create a scape of carrots.
6-Food wraps are created with nets. I used the repetitive short-rowing to make the net's shape like wraps.
- Knit Swatches Development
7-Tomato fair isle print is one of my favorites, because I love tomatoes.
8-Cheery tomatoes in blue boxes sold in union square market inspired me a lot. I tried different red and short-rowing to transfer tomatoes into knits.
- Knit Swatches Development
9-The shiny transparent nets for fruits remind me of New York's supermarkets. I use a green fishing line to knit the polished base, representing New York, weaving with various yarns with the same color tone.
10-I also get the eggplant print from my drawing. I transfer the eggplant shape into punchcards for fair isle on the knit swatch.
- Knit Swatches Development
11-The dress coat was mixed with blue, purple, and pink yarns. I also mixed copper wire into every few rows to hold the shape of the dress.
Design: Kejia Yan
Design by: KEJIA YAN
Email: kejiayan1030@gmail.com
Instagram: @oldbissocool
Bio
Kejia Yan is a designer who focuses on knitwear. After Kejia moved to NYC in 2018, she started undergraduate studies and majored in fashion design at Parsons. During Kejia's study at Parsons, she discovered her interest in knitwear. Making yarns into textiles with knitting and being able to tell stories with them are the biggest goals of Kejia's knitting journey.
Kejia Yan feels a lot through her experiences and emotions and the people surrounding her. Those emotions about people always lead her when she is experiencing the world and life. Also, Kejia focuses on social problems that the world's social problems, such as environmental pollution, children's and women's rights, etc. Kejia tried to use her design to convey what she wanted to say to people. Kejia's works tend to be colorful and joyful as her personality and let her audiences understand her stories better.