Fashion Illustration: Met Gala 2021 Jordan Roth Wearing Michael Silvan Robinson

The project brief was to create an artwork featuring a Met Gala fashion piece featured at the event in 2021. Making the garment central as well as the figure wearing it was key in executing this design. Choosing Michael Silvan Robinson’s coat of many colors was an easy one, with the garment representing identity and the expansive universe that makes the piece’s construction symbolic of its grandeur and transformative nature brought on by artwork, iconography and image that meshes into a pattern all its own. Incorporating print with elements central to Silvan’s design informed the work while keeping the integrity of the embellishments and rhythms Silvan created. Much like the spirit of the garment, keeping identity not only authentic but meaningful to how I experienced the design made this visual interpretation further connect to the conceptual framework Silvan was inspired by.

Jordan Roth’s other clothing elements give way to the gravity and length spanning the height of Roth which carries through the verticality of the artwork and bushel of balloons traveling upward on the image. Roth embodies the garment which represents the lengths identity can span, transform and carry into possibilities Silvan notes as infinite when regarding self-identity and its truths. Transformation is forgiving, flexible and symbolic of the power of the peacock which inspires Silvan to create a train that further accentuates and lengthens the coat of many colors. Color speaks to the peacock’s majesty which inspires the garment’s palette highlighted in the artwork with blues and greens. The peacock is a visually stunning animal, with a pattern that informs both Silvan’s work and my own; that identity, its accumulation and collection are beautiful with even the peacock using its feathers to attract mates.

Silvan incorporates many eyes into his design which are showcased in the artwork throughout, symbolic of the peacock. Eyes are the window into the soul of identity both Roth and Silvan are speaking towards, a vulnerability that encompasses the beauty of identity that has fluidity and rhythm which is noted by the artwork’s repetition and consideration of shape both organic, geometric and symbolic. The sense of variedness in both pieces is kaleidoscopic, symbolizing an evolving change represented by the circular thermal heat signatures in the artwork defining the layers which comprise identity and the making of Silvan’s garment.