Personality Project: Day Five

On Saturday I went fabric shopping but since I'd only really started the project a day ago, I had no clue what kinds of fabrics I wanted. Since it's a personality project, I decided to focus on just getting fabrics that I like and speak to me. I thought about if I was a fabric, what would it look like; maybe a bit quirky, a little loud, different, slightly girly but with and edge. I also new I wanted some sweat shirt material which could relate to tracksuits which is basically the uniform of grime artists and also something sparkly which for me represents the distractions that people seek through escapism.

I'm really happy with the fabrics that I found as they suited my themes even more than I expected them to. One that I really liked was a grey sweatshirt material (grime, tracksuits) with a glitter overlay which represent the partying, fun and also relates to Cyndi Lauper's extravagant outfits. Surprisingly, this was a very successful trip considering I had no idea what type of garments I was planning on making. I feel quite inspired by the fabrics and I think they will influence my designs almost as much as my research/themes.

Later that day I did more research on Frida Kahlo. I like to get to know each theme rather than just taking it for face value so I looked into the meanings of her paintings especially some of her lesser known ones which represent the sadness she continually felt throughout her life due to her many illnesses and miscarriages. I can relate to depression a lot and found out that she was a heavy drinker and took drugs to get away from it. I think it's important to put some of the sadness into this collection to contrast the excitement of the club scene that I'm also looking at and I think it give my concept more depth. I wrote words around the paintings which I felt when I looked at them and also words that I think Frida may have felt when painting them such as anger and self destruction. Inspired by these words and the colours in the paintings I created a series of mark makings which could create some interesting prints for the garments.

A couple of years ago I bought a Cyndi Lauper CD called 'A Night to Remember'. At the time I was quite depressed and I don't know what it was but whenever I listened to this CD it just made me feel so much happier. After looking at the way other people I escape, I thought about how Cyndi was, and still is, my way of escaping. I made a concept board about her, especially focusing on the clothing she wore. I've always said that if I grew up in the 80s I would've dressed exactly like her. Although all of the objects relate to me I definitely think the Cyndi Lauper CD is the most personal to me so this was really important for me to find a way of incorporating it into this collection. I'm going to use Cyndi's free spirit and and no fucks given kind of attitude as my inspiration for the type of woman I would want to wear my clothes.

I feel that today was a very successful day because it helped me to finalize my themes and ideas and also find a way to bring the different objects together. I feel like I have collected enough imagery and developed them enough to start designing some clothes in the next day or two.