you will get pdf files of the 3 sets of card decks and the instruction mini zine

about the game:
1- ∞ (infinity) players
you are a Beta tester!!
Please please contact me after you have played and tell me how you like it!

I first created this game when I was a first year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago when I was intending on going into the fashion department. This game is perfect if you have had an art history class or are interested in fashion. Even though I run a clothing line and I am a designer, I actually hate drawing. I almost never draw, instead I take notes and go straight to patterning. I was trying to come up with a way to make myself like drawing, so this game is the result! It is a good way to get the creative juices flowing!

I grew up an only child (which I always thought it was actually pronounced “lonely child”) and I obsessively would get board games and other kinds of games, but all of them were 2 player and up but in reality they were more fun with 3 or more players, so I wanted to create a game that is just as fun when you are by yourself.

There is no way to cheat in this game, it is very open to interpretation! If you don’t know a word, feel free to look it up, no shame in that! Also, many of the words have multiple meanings to them, so just take what meaning you want to! Feel free to look up reference photos while sketching! You can even collage things if you don’t want to draw!

To get started, draw some croquis!

How to draw your Croquis-
A croquis is a figure that you can trace when you are sketching garment designs so that you don’t have to draw a whole new person from scratch every time.
I usually draw it in pencil first on a opaque piece of paper (but not too thick of a paper) and then once I get it to look the way I want it to, I use a pen to darken the lines. Then I use tracing paper and make a ton of copies in pencil to then draw my new designs on top of it. If you have a light box you can use opaque paper too, or if you just want to make photocopies of it to have lots of copies to work with quickly, you can do that too!

When I was taught in college about how to draw a croquis, they told us about the 10 head high figure. They say in art school that the average person is 7.5 heads tall, this of course does not take many disabled people or people from non western cultures into account. I chose to forgo this ridiculous beauty “ideal” and just trace from pictures of me and my friends so that the garments that I drew would more closely end up looking like the garments that I then made. It was because of this that I got in an argument with a fashion teacher and decided I did not want to go into the fashion department after I saw how fatphobic, racist, classist, ableist and transphobic it was. wooooo!

You should draw your croquis however you want!
Feel free to dispose of the croquis idea altogether and just draw floating garments.

Now that you have a croquis shuffle each of the 3 decks, one is titled “Inspiration”, the second is titled “Clothing Article” and the Third is titled “Subculture”. Note: there are extra blank cards in “Inspiration” and “Subculture” for you to fill in and put into the game
Pick from the deck (without looking!) an “Inspiration” Card and a “Clothing Article” Card. You can optionally pick a “Subculture” Card as well.
Now draw on your paper that clothing item and make it inspired by whatever is on the inspiration card and if you picked a Subculture card make it in the style of that subculture. For example, when I first made this game I got: 1. Fluxus/ Jeans 2. Hippy/ Art Nouveau/ Unitard 3. Straight Edge/ Abstract Expressionism/ Romper-- you can see the result on the cover of this zine!

Feel free to give yourself different constraints. If it helps you to have a time limit you can do that, but also you can take however long you want! It is up to you!

There are many different ways to play!

You can do it with a friend where you take turns drawing different parts of an outfit, just as a fun game with no competition.
If you do it in a group, each person could take turns picking cards and then everyone draw their own version.
If you want it to be a competition, you can do it Apples to Apples Style where each person takes turns being the judge and picking cards, in this case everyone would have to have the same drawing utensils, and maybe only give yourselves a minute or 2 to draw!
You can do it in an Exquisite Corpse style taking turns with a friend or friends going from the top of the head to the toes, in this case just pick an inspiration card and a subculture card and then the clothing item it up to you based on where on the body you are working on!