Pleated Track Suit

Made over the span of 2 months. I initially began prepping the idea in October 2024 but held off until November since there was a lot of back and forth with my job on keeping me in Oregon or moving me back to New Jersey. Once I got word I hit the ground running with pattern making and drafting ideas. My initial inspiration for this set was inspired by the floors/ walls of my apartment in Portland. My apartment building was built in 2001 and each unit has a very industrial and peeled back feel to it. The walls and floors are concrete slabs which always gave the building a lot of character with a grungy feel to it that I think goes well with the vibe of the city. The winters here are full of rain and overcast weather which inspired me in a lot of ways — I chose to go with waterproof ripstop nylon to pay homage to the rain. For the pants, I took a pair of columbia waterproof nylon pants that I already owned to trace out patterns, and then I iterated them from there. I wanted to fuse the idea of track pants with jeans thus comes the pleats, as well as the pocketing that is cut and sewn to replicate that of jeans. The back pocket inspiration came from a pair of Maison Margiela jeans that I own that I have always loved the detail of; it reminds me of a pocket being torn off to reveal the original color of a piece. For the jacket I was heavily inspired by the yeezy windbreaker from season 5. But I of course did not want to tear the jacket apart for patterns, so I found a base for the patterns on a jacket online and iterated every single piece from that to tailor to my design. I attempted to match the sleeves with the wide leg feel of the pants but to also keep with the ideas of rain jackets, I added the drawstring details to finish it off. I decided to get rid of the sidewinder zip to let the pleated portions be the talking point of the jacket.