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Size 0, your one-stop anorexic shop

Presenting to you, Size 0, your one-stop anorexic shop!

If you’re a supporter of the thin movement, you’d find this place your favourite hang-out. We’ve got all sorts of products, ranging from bodycare to clothes to food (or rather, anti-food)! What’s best, is that they come at the minimal price of destruction to your body!

This season, we’ve got four highlights: the Snakeskin Corset, the Size 0 Brainwash & Serum, the Cookie Trap and Mia’s Handy Spork. With these highly effective items, you can rest assured that you will lose all your weight (and possibly to your death) in a month.

So why not pledge your support to Size 0 today? We have your interests at heart, as we say in our motto, “Big is Beautiful, but Thin is In”.

 

So yes, that’s my 99% final coursework! (Without the vinyl logo on the wall that I can’t thank Mrs Tan enough for helping me print and stick!) It’s an installment of an imaginary shop that sells imaginary items of all classifications, that cater to anorexic people. The idea of it is to illustrate what crazy measures these sufferers take to lose weight, and how much danger they are actually bringing to themselves.

That explains the price tags, which, rather than specifying monetary prices, indicate what anorexics have to pay with their health in their pursuit of beauty. This includes fainting spells, the degeneration of one’s brain, organ failure and though not specified, eventual death.

Also, the whole package of my shop is one that exudes an aura sophistication, or so I planned. The rich colour scheme of peach walls with black, glossy flooring and matte gold boxes just evokes a look of richness, intended to tie in with the fact that this is a beauty shop and my theme is afterall, beauty. Even the final logo, whose name I spent a lot of time deciding upon, and whose font I also spent quite a bit of effort experimenting with, is of a chic Bickham Script Pro, suggesting the image of a luxury brand.

While I would say there can be improvements made to the entire coursework, such as figuring out how to highlight the suffering of anorexic patients more (possibly even harsher-looking items?), I would never dare say that I’m not satisfied with this piece of work, and I would never want to. After a gruelling and admittedly dreadful nine months, I would say that my work has paid off and given rise to a beautifully packaged, complete installation piece! Of course, this is thanks to help from friends, family and my dear teachers Mrs Tan and Mr Lim, all of whom I cannot thank enough!

Choking to a beautiful figure

The highlight of Size 0’s Autumn collection: the Snakeskin Corset! This unique corset simulates the action of a snake coiling itself around one’s body, choking their waist to become the ideal 18-inch waist. Price: Breathlessness, dizziness, fainting, headaches.

Once again, this idea has developed thoroughly since its initial conception. I actually planned for it to be modelled after Osim’s slimming belt, but who knew, it evolved into something much classier, not that I’m not proud of it.

I decided on a snake because of the very reason that snakes practically choke someone to death. What I found challenging was how to make it and package it. I tried making the corset by using papier mache (that is why I say Neil Buchanan is an inspiring artist!) on some make-shift body made of tin cans and scrunched-up newspaper, but it was quite a failure. So I decided that I would use my back brace, no longer needed of course, as a mould. Because it was too big for an anorexic, I added extra padding on the inside. This once again taught me that success doesn’t always come on the first try, but it is only through experimentation and reflection that we can finally make it.

In any case, the next problem I faced was producing the snakeskin. I thought of painting it originally, but figured it probably wouldn’t look very good. After consultation with my family, we thought of using sequins – and sequins did I use! Not only do they give texture to the corset, they also give it a fashionable look. All in the name of beauty! Here, let me add that I must thank my dad for contributing manpower in sticking the sequins!

Then, of course, there was the fabric and the strings, which I got much help from my aunt to complete! I owe it to her.

I also ensured that every single detail was accounted for. This included the strings at the back, which I was tempted to skip due to a lack of time. But I’m glad I stuck with them – they give the corset a finished look.

For the fabric and the strings, of course I also had to search for suitable and appropriate materials, and after contemplating between satin, velvet and other fabric, I decided on velvet, and the string with similar texture was used to complement it.

I guess I learnt a lot from making this piece. First was that I should never be afraid to try. Secondly, I had to see both the big picture and the minute details – I had to understand what features I needed to put and how to choose complementary materials. And I even had to make sure that there were few holes (these were inevitable) between sequins, or else it would be hideous! And thirdly, I realised that I could count on my family to help me tide through! I really owed it to them for this piece of art. Otherwise, I doubt I could have completed it.

And thanks to them, it looks really polished and impressive, and makes me feel both satisfied and gratified when I see it!

Brainwash

Size 0 Brainwash & Brainwashing Serum help to strengthen your resolve in losing weight, hence are the solution weak determination! Infused with western media influence and peer pressure respectively, it ensures maximum effectiveness in losing weight and achieving an emaciated look.

Here is the design for it: (I don’t have the actual sticker pasted on the bottle because I forgot to take a picture of it)

 

 

And the past designs. These were actually redone as I had frustratingly broken my thumbdrive two days before coursework submission and lost my prep. Well, but I’d like to applaud myself for being able to reproduce what I previously took weeks to do, in an hour!

 

As can be seen, the barbie doll was a fixture in all my designs. To be honest I didn’t know why I wanted to have a barbie doll – I was actually just experimenting with it, but decided it looked good (ironically) and I had spent too much time on it, so I decided to keep it. I guess that’s how things come about – slightly by accident! (And truth be told, I think my new prep looks better than my old ones, which is both a good and bad thing )

In any case, I had to (pity on my eyes) study pictures of emaciated bodies to know what to do with the barbie. I paid a lot of attention to bringing out her ribcage and hip bones, and also how sunken her face looked. And truth be told I had no idea how I would edit her. I just played around with liquify to make her already skinny body even thinner, and I experimented with the brush tool because that was the only way I knew how to do it and voila – out came ribcage bones. Not bad for an amateur! I’m quite pleased actually that it looks quite realistic, especially the ribcage! On the whole, I made everything exageratted – the worse the better!

Oh, and another challenging thing I had to do was transfer clothes onto her (yes, my barbie was nude). I’d say it looks quite fitting on her!

After that, I explored different designs – the first was modelled after Biosilk’s design, because I thought it looked like an hourglass figure. Not very exciting though. I had another one with wilted flowers, which was supposed to give the message that anorexics are liked withered flowers, once beautiful but have now lost all hope and life. Another one was that of the red and blue ribbon, inspired by another shampoo bottle I saw that had a ribbon on it. It was symbolic as red was the colour of anorexia, and blue was just quite a sad colour. Also, anorexics used red bracelets to identifiy themselves, hence, the beads that made up the ribbons. Lastly, I chose the shape of the ribbon as I related it to the awareness ribbon – in an attempt to say that anorexia is a disease that needs our attention. (By the way, both the flowers and ribbons were original photos taken by ME!)

My chosen design was that of strings of brainwash spiralling around the barbie doll. I chose that because it was most in line with the idea of brainwash, almost seeming to say that western media influence and peer pressure and one’s OCD had indoctrinated to one that “thinness is beauty”. I actually had a further design with a stopwatch in the background (which I didn’t bother recreating the second time) to symbolise hypnotism, but I felt that was a bit overboard.

I even put thought into choosing the bottle. Out of many candidates, chose L’Oreal Colour Vive Pro because it was flat and easy to paste the sticker on, and it was red (and that symbolises anorexia, as I mentioned above)

So that’s it about brainwash and serum, a lot of thought and effort put into it. It was gratifying to see the success of my not-so-professional photoshop skills, and the intense editing of the barbie doll is what I’m most proud of.

To atone for your cookie sins:

If you succumbed to the cookies of my previous “artwork” post, here’s the time to “atone” your sin! (This piece of art is also a part of my coursework)

Introducing Mia’s Handy Spork! This spork is the best friend of all anorexics and bulimics – with its repulsive design, it is sure to avert anyone’s appetite. And with outstretched fingers on one end, it simulates the action of bulimics who reach in to their throats to induce vomit.

Price: Constipation, Abdominal pain, Oesophagal Reflux

The aim of this piece was to show the insane ways anorexics try to lose weight, and how they cause harm to themselves in the end.

I spent a lot of time and effort on this. I actually made two other designs before this – one of a monster’s head on one end and claws on the other, and the other with a Venus flytrap on one end and a cactus on the other. But I decided on the hand because the interpretation about the bulimic action fit in too well.

 

For this handy spork, I also did quite a lot of prep on it. I investigated different poses of hands for both ends of the spork. Also, I decided to use the same technique of overlaying translucent layers over one another to paint the spork as I did for my cookies.

Actually, I had accidentally painted the hand on one side too thickly, but – as thick-skinned as this sounds – I was quite pleased with how I troubleshooted. I repainted that side of the spork white, then tried to paint on again. However, I realised that the clay wasn’t as absorbent as it was coated with a layer of white acrylic paint, but I still managed to paint quite carefully, and it looks quite homogeneous on both sides now!

However, I can improve in my painting technique, because I think I applied too many layers of paint in attempt to salvage certain parts, but it ended up backfiring. I tried to salvage it further by “brushing” the layers of paint off. Perhaps not the most advisable thing to do, but it worked!

On the whole, I’m quite pleased with it.