Me Made May 2020 (& Animal Crossing)

Before May began, I had gotten into the habit of wearing a few pairs of sweatpants on rotation, paired with a t-shirt or jumper depending on the weather. I was, however, spending time dressing my Animal Crossing character in a variety of outfits, hats and backpacks (if you’ve missed it, the new Animal Crossing Switch game was released near the end of March). I was probably spending more time getting dressed on Animal Crossing than in real life, and I was certainly having more fun with it.

I decided, spur of the moment on 01st May, that my Me Made May pledge this year would be to coordinate outfits with my Animal Crossing character each day, as a way to put more fun and more thought into getting dressed than I had been of late.

It took all of one day for me to realise that my wardrobe and my Animal Crossing character’s wardrobe (which includes a lot of fruit themed hats) don’t actually overlap very much. Luckily, Animal Crossing includes a ‘designer’ function where you can create custom clothing designs. I hadn’t tried this feature before Me Made May began, but I’m now an avid user.

The designer has fairly simple functionality – a single size of pixel art, and only a handful of (dress and top) clothing shapes – but I find the limitations really satisfying to work within. The limitations also mean that I can’t spend too long recreating each day’s outfit. I suspect it’s taking me a maximum of thirty minutes to create an outfit and then take that day’s Instagram pic on my tiny virtual model. Phil takes my photo each day, I take hers.

I highly doubt I would have found the time to participate in Me Made May in this way had I not been based at home currently. I’m working from home (and did regularly prior to Covid-19), but the time saved commuting to work, and the greater ease of slipping back into hobbies during breaks or at the end of the day, have allowed me to think about Me Made May and my wardrobe consistently every day. I haven’t gotten to any of the larger craft projects I wrote on a to-do list when social distancing first began, but I have spent a little bit of time each day exploring my wardrobe, and deciding how to recreate a favourite garment in miniature digital format.