Violet Nichols — BFA Fashion Design 2025

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Video: 30 second trailer for the Film Uncommon Sense, costumed by me

Uncommon Sense: Costuming Internal Metamorphosis

Uncommon Sense is a film about a girl, Aarya, who is being haunted by the bones of Thomas Paine. While manifesting as night terrors initially, the hauntings have been escalating exponentially over time. She is slowly becoming him, the words she writes and the thoughts she thinks are not hers, but they are the only ones she knows, and she has been increasingly confusing her own reality with memories that are not her own. As this problem is becoming a serious issue in her relationship, a mysterious young woman named Margot appears, saying she’s witnessed the full effects of what these bones can do and has been on a mission to collect them all and put Paine to rest.

She explains that the only missing piece happens to be in the possession of an estranged childhood friend of Aarya’s boyfriend, who ran off to join a revolution in the Amazon a few years ago. Except now he’s back, and wants to start a new life off the grid due to increasing paranoia of world systems collapsing. Through the absurd plot of a group of young adults in New York City being haunted by the bones of a disgraced founding father, this film aims to explore complicated interpersonal relationships as well as the cyclical nature of societal struggles, pursuit of utopian ideals, and the consequences of ideological fervor. Through research for the costuming of this film I’ve become drawn to a quotation from Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason which Illustrates his beliefs surrounding consciousness and rebirth.

“The slow and creeping caterpillar-worm of to-day passes in a few days to a torpid figure and a state resembling death; and in the next change comes forth in all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance of the former creature remains; everything is changed; all his powers are new, and life is to him another thing.”

I feel that this quotation both encapsulates the concept the film plays with of spirits living on, as well as Aarya’s journey throughout the film of being consumed by a consciousness that is not her own and ending the film finally independent yet with an identity she has yet to discover. Her costumes throughout the film are inspired by the cycles of a chrysalis becoming a butterfly.

Image: With Thomas Paine being a central character in this film, even without actually being seen, I wanted there to be an 18th century influence. Although it was ultimately subtle as I leaned towards color and the metamorphosis metaphor to tell the story.

Image: Both in the script and in Thomas Pains writings there was a lot about nature to be extracted for imagery. He was buried under a walnut tree, wanted to buld a bridge inspired by a spiders web, and used the metaphor of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly to explain his ideas around conciousness after death.

Image: I chose a limited but colorful pallet for the characters in oder to emphasis the dreary colorless look of the world around them. Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch seemed to be the perfect color source as it depicts humanity progressing into chaos/ hell which is also a repeated sentiment throughout the film.

Image: Each look is meant to represent a stage of metamorphosis as the character progresses

Image: In the movie, two characters run off to live off the grid away from what they percieve is a society soon to collapse. Inspired by this I chose to hand spin my own yarn, featured on all but the first look.

Image: Look 1: A nightgown featuring large dramatic sleeves and multiple layers of chiffon varying in length to achieve a rounded bottom mimicking a chrysalis as well as a general heavy feeling. The oversised collar is representative of the character feeling suffucated by her life and the hauntings as well as the night terror she experiences in this scene where she is about to be beheaded.

Image: Look 2: Later she goes to work as a historical tour guide. Her tour includes the location in the West village where Thomas Paine died, which is now Marie's Crisis Cafe. This looks is meant to be inspired by 18th century fashion while still looking like something a young woman today might wear. The free motion couching is in the pattern of a butterfly wing while also looking a bit like a spider web.

Image: Look 3: The main character, Aarya wears this look when she is hopeful that there is a solution to her haunting issue but maybe too hopeful as plans are about to fail. The top of this look is more obviously butterfly inspired than the last as her hopes are higher but she wears the previous look again later when things go badly. The couching on the skirt depicts Images from Garden of earthly delights as the plot is about to delve deeper into absurdity and chaos.

Image: Look 4: She is on her way to find the characters that ran away to the woods and needs to be more mobile. She is seen in pants for the first time as a way to express new independence
seen in pants for the first time bc shes independent now. She is meant to look like a drooping new butterly, not ready to fly but close.

Image: Look 5: With the bones of Thomas Paine put to rest and the hauntings finally over, Aarya ends the film a blank slate, ready to go out and discover who she really is without a founding father in her head.

Bio

My work celebrates practicality and wearability while leaving space for personal expression. Whether through thoughtful textiles, nostalgic colors, or small hand-finished details, I aim to create garments that feel lived-in, loved, and deeply human.

Raised in Pennsylvania and shaped by afternoons spent in my grandmother’s quilting store, I developed a reverence for making early on. These roots continue to inform my practice today. Inspired by family ties, Catholic upbringing, and the aesthetics of the 1960s and 70s, my designs often return to themes of nostalgia, yet seek to dress the present.

I am most fulfilled when creating clothes for women who value both function and individuality. I aspire to make garments they can move in, think in, and feel at home in. As I grow in this field, I see design not only as craft, but as a quiet form of vulnerability: a way to share myself while honoring the complexities of others.