Fashion designer Leetal Platt on creating a San Diego Comic-Con swag bag jacket and the new Cozday Collective
Credit: Leetal Platt
San Diego Comic-Con swag bags are known for having lots of different designs. They’ve evolved to become backpacks showing the many TV shows and movies of Warner Bros. Entertainment and attendees can usually be found trading them to get the design they want. The unique look of the bags has inspired some creative projects over the years as con attendees put them to use after a con. Perhaps one of the most well-known are the jacket designs by Hero Within’s Tony Kim. This year though the bags are being brought to a new level as Kim turned to friend and fellow fashion designer Leetal Platt for help creating a new jacket for a good cause.
Platt created a unique jacket out of this year’s comic-con bags for a Fostering Fashion Auction. The silent auction’s proceeds go towards providing comic books to foster kids in Orange County. Platt and Kim decided to stick with a jacket design for the auction due to the original Kim made, but Platt told GeekFold it was still a challenge to make a new layout since you can’t copy the original design and the bags have different colors as well as sizes.
Credit: Leetal Platt
According to Platt, the material of the bags was great to work with since it doesn’t rip easy and has a cloth backing. The jacket is a size medium that Platt said should fit most people, but can be altered. After creating the jacket, Platt has more ideas for how the bags can be used.
“When I was given all these bags to make this piece for the auction, I have so many extras now that it’s really inspiring. When you see the cut remainders in a pile, it looks like another garment and it’s like oh now I have another idea for a garment. Now I want to make more…” she said. “For example, the comic con bag has had for multiple years straps to turn it into a backpack. So the straps are only like an inch and a half or two inches wide, and we always think of using the flat broad sides for the garment but what if you were to make something out of just the straps?”
The jacket for the auction is made with a mix of graphics from the bags, but Platt would also love to make one piece that just focuses on a single aspect of the graphics since there are different color schemes on the bags and what you focus on tells a different story about movies, comics, or comic-con itself. To participate in the auction, you can stop by the Hero Within booth at comic-con before noon Sunday. The jacket has even been signed by DC talent like actors Brandon Routh and Grant Gustin.
Platt was also announcing exciting news for her own new venture at the convention with the launch of the Cozday Collective. She started the Cozday brand a few years ago, but now wants to turn that into an ecommerce platform where she curates specific pieces of geek fashion from various companies into a one-stop shop.
“When I look back, even if I wasn’t doing my line anymore, so many friends of mine and so many businesses that I know are growing in this area and making quality products, but everyone’s small businesses and everyone’s starting out really small. The only reason we know of these great companies is because we’re in the same circle and come to comic-con,” she said. “The internet allows you global reach. I just want to give the opportunity to make a one stop shop where you can get all these quality pieces together. Maybe in the future even being able to highlight special collaborations by prestigious brands as well.”
It won’t just be pop culture like that at comic-con that receives attention either, but STEAM areas as well. She’s currently working to build a vendor list so people should stay tuned about what they’ll find on the shop soon.
“I feel like despite the fact that geek is cresting, it’s been around for a while, there’s been a lot of superhero movies now. I still feel like there’s room for improvement in finding product out there. It still feels limited depending on where you live in the United States, who you know, and what you can access at that moment. It’s about getting visibility,” she explained. “I hope to make it a celebration of artists too, who work off things that inspire them, but not always just about a license or story. Sometimes it’s very much about a brand story like anything else.”
Credit: Leetal Platt
Cozday Collective will fall perfectly into where Platt sees geek fashion going in the future, which is a level where you're dressing like you belong in a comic book or wearing sunglasses that look like Catwoman or putting a graphic tee with a character on it under a nice suit.
“Now geek fashion has been around awhile and it’s more like a broader lifestyle and the thought that the things that you own really represent you as a person. That’s the thing that’s been around for fashionistas for a while, but it’s only the last decade for nerds to really have a pride and ownership and a pride of presentation,” she said. “That doesn’t mean stripping yourself down and buying clothes at the local department store. It can be buying clothes you still care about and getting nerdy about wearing a nice suit and then putting on a tie that has a science theme or something. That’s where I think it’s going in the future. It’s a spirit.”
You can learn more about the Fostering Fashion Auction on the Hero Within website and see more photos below. Find out more about Platt’s new venture at CozdayCollective.com.
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