Zoey Simpson’s “Archive Project” was a mini project based off of a garment blindly chosen from the school’s Archive closet. From this late 1960’s garment, she researched the 1968 riots going on in the world, and the hippie movement. Her inspiration behind this project is The Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. This song talks about the riots, heaviness, and lack of love in the world. She wanted her garment to reflect the emotions of the song.




The color blue was chosen for this collection after being inspired by Picasso’s Blue Period and “The Old Guitarist”. Wanting to reflect the heaviness of the song and also have a nod to the hippie movement, Zoey created macrame samples for an over dress. Heavy. Stripped back. She used deep blue denim for her kaftan, and left the edges raw. The lyrics in this song are a repetitive rhyme scheme, so for the kaftan’s textiles Zoey did repetitive stripped fabric stripes.




After testing out different fabric scraps, yarns, ropes, and used wires, Zoey decided on using plastic PVC tubing for the macrame garment. Layers and layers of this tubing created the heaviness that she wanted. The striking blue really stood out as well. She chose to do the normal square knot and also used a flower knot to represent the Flower Power movement.




This is Zoey’s final design and toile. She was not able to make this garment until after the lockdown started, so she created the final garment in her student apartment. She hopes to eventually add on to this single garment project.