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.