New York City has inspired Matt to go after a career in the fashion world. During his time at Explo, he has become more confident in himself and his work, and he is ambitious to take over the runways in the future!
I really like fashion and art, so I took Drawing and Costume Design Challenges. I like drawing different fashion-related things and I’ve always really enjoyed picking out outfits, but over the last year, I’ve developed more of an interest in it. Just going about my life, I wanted to see what else fashion has to offer. I love New York City, which is a really big fashion capital, so I draw a lot of inspiration by the things I see on the runways of New York. I already know that I want to do something with fashion in the future. It’s my dream to be a fashion designer. Alexander McQueen, Alexander Wang, and Valentino are my favorite designers.
Through the Drawing course, I feel like I’ve been able to improve my skills as an artist, which will help me a lot in the future when I sketch outfits that later on I’ll be able to create. I think that Costume Design has helped me to use different materials. It has showed me that you can basically use anything and make nearly anything you want to make.
Explo is really fun — I’m sad that it’s ending. Both of my instructors are really supportive. Even when I wasn’t feeling too creative, they bounced ideas off of me and that really propelled my work. I’ve become a lot more confident in myself and in my skills. As an artist, I wasn’t comfortable with what I created, but a lot of people in my class and my friends were like, ‘Oh, wow, what you’re making is so amazing.’ So it has been really great to gain that confidence.
Mari Armei