Personality Project: Day One

Last week we were briefed on the personality project and were asked to bring in 5-7 items that we felt represent a part of our personality. I brought in a hat that belonged to my great grandmother, two travel cards that my mum kept from my first and second birthday, a book about Seychelles (where my dad is from) that my grandma gave me, a photo of a club in Paris in the 1920s, and a novel that belonged to my mum when she was young and she gave to me.
I started by doing a mind map about my items. This was useful because it made me think about more than just my objects and instead what they represented and how they made me feel. It also gave me key words and phrases which I can then research further so that my project is about more than just the objects. The words that I picked out were possessions, things that define us, memories, crowded, claustrophobic, freedom and distractions.

I was a little lost about where to go after this so I spoke to one of my tutors and she gave me some really interesting ideas. She noticed that a lot of my items were things that most people would've thrown away, especially use I don't use them anymore. We started talking about collecting things and how when this gets out of hand it can lead to hoarding. It made think about how maybe I am a bit of a hoarder because I like to keep things.

I did some research and found a book about an exhibition at the Barbican in february called Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector. It was an exhibition which showed the collections of 14 different artists. It was really interesting to read this book because there were interviews with the artists which talked about why people, artists in particular collect, and how these collections can influence their work.

I did some more research into hoarding and also claustrophobia and found some really interesting photographers and artists who address these subjects. I made a concept board with images that depict my chosen themes and I'm going to further research these concepts.

Details Project: Day 10

Thursday was the final day of our project. I had one or two outfits that I needed to do colour combinations for so I started the day doing this.

Then I began to think about my final line up. Usually when drawing a final line up I illustrate it all myself but I wanted to try something different so I decided to it on photoshop. I scanned in all of my illustrations and then played around with colour on photoshop. I chose to use the head of Julia Sarr-Jamois for my illustrations. Julia is an editor at i-D magazine and I chose her because she is the type of person that I'd want to wear my clothes. She wears bright colours and takes risks with her clothing choices. She isn't considered a stereotypically 'sexy woman' but she is sexy through her confidence and boldness. When she walks into a room people think wow I want to know her.

This is the final line up that I created on photoshop. I think it is a good first attempt but if I was going to use this as my way of showing my clothes I need to practice more. I think the drawings are messy, partly because I didn't have time to draw them properly before I scanned them, so I need to take the time to make these perfect before scanning. I'm also not sure if I like the legs and hands so I would need to find a way to do this better. Although this didn't turn out as well I would've liked I do think it was useful to do because it made me think about my presentation in a new way rather than just doing it how I always do. One thing I really liked about doing it on photoshop was being able to scan my fabrics in and put them into my illustrations. I didn't have all the fabrics that I wanted to use but on the yellow dress and skirt you can really see the texture of it and I think this helps to bring my drawings to life. When I'm next doing a final line up I'm going to go back to hand drawing my designs but maybe find a way to collage a person's face and some fabrics into my illustrations. 

Details Project: Day 9

I have quite a lot of designs now that I could use to put together a collection so on Wednesday I decided to focus on colour and pattern. I did some research on Henri Matisse and found one of his cut outs that I particularly liked. Using some of the shapes I drew a very simple repeat pattern. Unfortunately, I didn't have my laptop with me and there were no more left in the CLR so I had to hand draw the pattern. I played with colour combinations and then drew some sketches of how this pattern could be placed onto a garment. I changed the placement of the print and how much or little could be used Unfortunately, I don't think this was very successful mainly because I didn't have a laptop. If I'd been able to do this on photoshop I could've have made the print more interesting, played with size more and tried more colour combinations which would have made the process much more successful. However I did draw some interesting designs but unfortunately I was thinking about the print too much instead of the details so I don't think they will be very useful.

The night before I did some more research on folk clothing and I really love some of the details in the images so I went through them, picked out the details and designed some more garments. 

At this point I felt that I had drawn enough designs to build a collection so I went through my whole book and drew a pink dot next to every design that I liked. I made the decisions based on my first instincts on whether or not I thought the design was good enough and how well it related to the brief because if I thought too much about it too much I would keep changing my mind. Next I drew the tops, bottoms, coats and dresses all on separate sheets and started to put the outfits together. I wanted colour to be very important but I haven't designed clothes with this many bright colours in such a large quantity so I drew each outfit about 4/5 times changing the colour combinations each time. I asked some of my friends opinions on which they thought worked best. They all had fairly similar opinions and this helped me a lot to decide which colours to use. I think this was successful because I could see how each outfit could completely change just by the different colours I used and in what quantity. It definitely helped me when decided on what my final line-up would be.

Details Project: Day 8

On Tuesday I chose 3 of my details and photocopied them 8 times. I then used these to create shapes on the mannequin. I really enjoyed this task and found it useful for my design development because it made me think about how I could use my details in a completely new way. By enlarging them and placing them on different parts of the body I was able to create completely new designs. I think it's interesting that the details don't even look like themselves anymore, but instead something completely new. I think the process of working on the stand is really important because the end result of clothes will be 3D so it is important to design around the body. From each design that I made on the mannequin there are many ways that I could develop it into a garment. I printed off my favourite designs and did some quick illustrations next to each. I think this process was really good for me because it helped me to quickly generate  lots of ideas.

Next I chose a few of my favourite quick designs and developed these by changing small details each time. I also started to think about colour and fabric choices so I started to draw my designs in colour and put little fabric swatches next to them. By drawing them in colour I was able to start to imagine how these garments would look if they were actually made.

Details Project: Day Four and Five and Six

On Friday I went through all of my research and chose two images that I felt were the most inspiring for colours. Then I went through the colour swatches that I got and chose colours that matched. I felt this was important to do because colour was often very important in folk clothing, different colours had different meanings and were worn for different occasions. I want to do quite colourful collection, so before I started to design I felt that it was important to think about different colour combinations and how they would work in different proportions.

On Saturday I went fabric shopping and because the notes I'd made after reading that book and the colour swatches  I knew exactly what fabrics and colours I was looking for. I wasn't able to get everything I was looking for but I did find a good variety of fabrics such as wool,silk, fur and tweeds. Because I wasn't sure what I would be designing yet it was hard to choose fabrics so I focused on more on getting the right colours.

It was useful to go fabric shopping at this point in the project partly because I won't have time to go next week but also I can start more proper design develop with the types of fabrics that I can use in mind.

On Sunday I went through all of the fabric swatches and cut about three or four squares of each. Then I grouped them thinking about how the different colours and types of fabrics could possibly work together. I found this useful because it meant before I started to design I was thinking about what the clothing would be made out of, which is very important because I need to know which fabrics work well together so I can start to design. I knew that I wanted the colours and fabrics to clash a little so it was important to put them directly next to each other in a group so I could start to imagine how my design could look.

Details Project: Day Three

Thursday was a very productive day for me and I felt like I did a lot of work which is going to help me further my project and start to design a collection.

I started by choosing images from my concept board and some others that I'd collected. Going through them one by one I drew details from the garments such as collars, pockets, sleeve shapes and seam lines. This was useful as it made me think more about specific details rather than just the shape of the garments. Using these details I started to design some clothes but felt it was too early to do this as I need to do some more idea generation. 

Next I selected some images that had interesting shapes and details and cut them out. Then I rearranged them to create new outfits. I tried to play with shape and composition for example making a sleeve into a skirt and a pocket into a neckpiece. This task was really useful because it forced me to think about my chosen details in a different way. By putting them in a place where they wouldn't normally go and changing the size of them I created some really interesting collages which I can develop into to designs. I made the first few collages using only images from my research so they looked like costumes rather than wearable clothes. To develop from these I made more but mixed the collaged details with drawings so they became clothes which could actually be worn. I found this useful because I started with quite an extravagant, outgoing design and developed them into wearable garments.Then I drew some quick designs inspired by these collages.

On my way home I went into B&Q and got some of the colour cards which I used for paint colours. I had an idea of what colours I wanted to use so got lots of cards so I would have a large choice of which to use. The traditional folk clothing is very bright and colourful, especially more so in the 1900s when there were more ways to dye fabric so I decided to base my colour story on these images. I found a book in the library about the specific textiles, colours and fabrics that were used in Eastern European clothes so I went through it and made notes on the colours and fabrics that they used that when I went fabric shopping the next day I would know exactly what I'd be looking for. 

Details Project: Day Two

On Wednesday we met at the National Gallery and chose some exhibitions that we wanted to go to which related to our themes.

Eastern European Folk clothing is quite a specific area for me to be looking at so I couldn't find any exhibitions that related to it so I decided to go to the National Gallery, The V&A and the Museum of London.

The V&A usually has a whole section on East Europe but unfortunately this section was closed when we went so I didn't find anything on Folk clothing but there was a lot of painting of menswear in the 1800s. The Museum of London was particularly good for this because although there wasn't a big collection, I was able to see the actual clothes rather than just a painting of it. This meant I could get quite close to them and draw specific details that I found interesting. There were lots of paintings in the National Gallery but there weren't many that were specific to my themes so I drew some the paintings of women that had interesting details. I found it more useful to zoom in to certain parts of the garments they were wearing rather that trying to draw the whole painting because it forced me to extract specific details which would be more useful to me when I started my design development.

Overall I didn't find this day a good way to spend my time mainly because I couldn't find much that related to me and project. There were some interesting details that I saw in paintings but I think the research I'd gathered from books was a lot more in depth and useful to me. I think it was good to see the clothing on a larger scale than in a book or on a screen but I think this will help me more in another project when there is a exhibition that relates to my work.

Details Project: Day One

On Tuesday we were briefed on the project which is all about look back at historical clothing and picking out specific detailing with could interpret in a modern way to create a 6 look day time collection.

I started by going to the library to do research and look at different eras in fashion and which interested me the most. Lots of people were looking at books about British/American clothing so I decided to look at something different and found a book on Traditional Folk clothing. I was immediately drawn to the bright colours and intricate textiles used. I found a couple more books on folk wear, focusing on Eastern Europe and also one which had detailed drawings of Menswear in the 1800s. I decided these would be my inspirations because I love the contrast between the romantic folk clothing which was more about the textiles and the tailored menswear which could be the inspiration for most of the details.

I spent the day reading these books, researching online and scanning and photocopying images which I particularly liked. This was useful and good task to do on the first day because I was immediately focused on my theme and what I would be looking out for the gallery trip the next day. I photocopied a lot of images from the books so that I would have a large bank of visual imagery that I could use for idea generation and design development.

When looking online I found a Yves Saint Laurent collection from the 70s called 'La Blousant Romaine' named after a painting by Henri Matisse which inspired the whole collection. I love how he interpreted the garments in the paintings and made them into real clothes. As textile technique such as embroidery, are very important in Eastern European folk clothing I'm going to do more research into Matisse's block print, many of which were inspired by Romanian clothing. I think it could be interesting to make a digital print out of them and use them in the same way folk people would use embroidery but make it more modern.

When I got home that day I went through all of the images that I had scanned and picked out the most important ones. There were many that I liked but it was important for me to narrow them down so I could be specific about what exactly would be the inspiration for collection.

Week 8

Monday

On Monday I focused on finishing the pattern for my dress because I knew that I would need to buy my fabrics on Tuesday and I wanted the pattern to be finished so I knew how much fabric to buy. Previously when I'd made a toile of the dress it had been in calico because I wasn't sure what fabric I wanted it to be made in. I chose jersey because it is associated with sporty/ casual clothes and although I'm making a dress which could be really dressy I want it to be more of a casual thrown on dress. So today I did another toile in jersey fabric so I could see how it will fit in a different fabric. I didn't need to make many changes, I just removed the darts and made it a bit smaller because the jersey will stretch to fit over the body.

Wednesday

On Tuesday I went fabric shopping so that on Wednesday I was able to start making my actual dress. The dress has a pintucked edging that goes all around the cut out and the arm hole and since the dress is quite simple to make I decided to get the pintucks done first as this would be time consuming. The pleats took me a lot longer than I expected them to take, I stayed after my lesson till about 7.30pm and then spent another couple of hours finishing them the next day. I found it hard to make the pintucks even as I've never done them so small and in such a large scale. Even though I spent a day and a half sewing the pintucks, I think it was time well spent because this is the most detailed part of the dress.

Thursday

On Thursday I spent a couple of hours finishing the pintucks and then I made the dress which only took about 2 hours to make.

Friday

On Friday I asked my friend Sara to wear the dress so I could see how it looked on an actual person. I really love how it turned out but there are some fit issues that I want to correct such as how it fits around the neck and the back. However, this also could be because it wasn't made to fit Sara. In my illustrations the dress wasn't meant to cover both breasts but I quite like how it fits on Sara as it could turn into an non-accidental nip-slip. 

When glimpsing at my book and then looking at my final piece, I don't think the two are obviously related. But if you properly look through my research you can see the link between the two in the colour and shape of the garment. I think this is good because I don't want people to immediately be able to tell what my inspirations were when looking at the garment, I want them to do their own research on it and really think about the ideas of female sexuality that I'm trying to show.