Introduction to Pattern Making - Rave Short

With the final garment coming up, and my complete lack of experience in pattern cutting I decided to partake in a 'Rave Short' which was a 2 hour course outside that we could partake in, in our own time. The short I chose was called 'An Introduction to Pattern Making.' 

Magdalena, the course leader had previously studied at Ravensbourne which was great as she knew the Uni well, she worked in Pattern Making and Industrial Process, hearing about what she does and where she had worked was really interested. It showed me aspects of the fashion world I knew very little about. Unfortunately as it was only a 2 hour course we hardly had enough time to learn beyond a classic top pattern. However I still learnt a fair amount from this extremely short time period, so it was worth doing.

The tools for pattern cutting, for example the pattern master was completely new to me, I learnt how to use it and how the curve is used for sleeves, necklines, hems and much more. I was originally terrified by this tool as I thought it would be much more complicated than it was, it was interesting to see how many ways it can be used, and I was surprised at how quickly I picked this up.

During the evening we were given a pattern to trace, I thought this was such a shame. Seeing as I hadn't previously designed a pattern, that's what I thought we would be learning to do. However, I still used this opportunity to learn, when making a pattern the details put onto the pattern are of the utmost importance, especially when the pattern is for someone else, and making the slightest mistake can completely ruin a garment. 

Overall, the evening course, although not what I expected, was helpful to an extent. I learnt about the tools and details needed. I am disappointed that I wasn't actually taught how to know what pattern to make from a design, but hopefully in the future if I partake in another course I will achieve this.

Essay Research | The Tate Modern

As research for our upcoming essay we had to visit a series of gallery spaces at the Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery. Our essay is to be a comparison of 2 of the spaces we visited that day, this can be from both galleries or from just one. As I greatly disliked and was completely uninspired by Whitechapel Gallery, it will not be included in my essay. Therefore my comparison will be between two Tate spaces. 

The first, 'Facing History' curated by Jessica Morgan, brings together two bodies of work that confront the violence and atrocities of contemporary war and civil society. I felt this related to my culture theme as the political, social and economical side of a Country shapes its culture, art and people. This room included two artists work; Leon Golub and Hrair Sarkissian. Golub's work 'Vietnam II' was a wall Muriel, stretched along brown paper. The painting was made from 1970's newspaper cuttings and photographs from the Vietnam War. Golub was heavily involved culturally with his work as he had protested the war in the 60's. His inspiration was Picasso's 'Guernia' and he described his work as "the visual metaphor of a newspaper, a super photograph or a comic strip.. assulted by tumult and violence."

The other artist, Hrair used photography. At first his take on war seems disconnected , but these images portray his upbringing, his own personal culture; the towns he lived in, people he knew and the way he was brought up. The images were of 'hanging' sites, taken at early hours of the morning when executions were going on.

My second chosen room was 'Homeworkers' which was also a collection of various artists works, I felt the collage theme tied in with the mixture of photography and fine art in the previous room. Many of the pieces in this room had political and sociala aspects, fighting for womens and workers rights. Also based in the 70's, the other works in the room followed similar subject matter. However this room's political views were about the subvert hierarchies of power in the relationships between male and female.

Overall, this trip, although not directly influencing my project, inspiration is always helpful, and it gave me new ways to look at bringing culture into my project.

Structure and Attachment | Digital Printing Samples

After a full day of working on our books, I decided to stay late to transfer my final digital prints onto fabric as final samples for my book. This was so I could learn the skill of how to, if I should want to use digital printing onto fabric in the future. I found this extremely useful and easy to do, which was quite a surprise as I thought it would be much more complicated than it was. 

To make the sample you simply had to convert your image to a 300 resolution, flat, GRB, TIFF format. Then you opened the file on the computer connected to the machine, and printed it the size you wanted. This particular printer, prints your print onto paper in special ink, then you use the flat bed to essentially heat press your print onto a chosen synthetic fabric. There are actually two ways to digitally print onto fabric, but the other printer which prints it straight onto the fabric instead of paper only transfers the print onto natural fabrics. As my samples were man-made fabric, I used the paper printer.

I really enjoy doing this, and I hope to use this technique in future work.

Structure and Attachment | Accessory Photoshoot

The Set Up

I decided to use the inside of a town house for my set up, white walls with various art pieces. Within this, I moved locations a few times. In this town house there was an over-sized green cupboard that reminded me so much of that image from my mood board, it related extremely well. As I had previously spray painted my accessory red I didn't need to do that much with it on the model. The other props I included in the shoot were some Parasols with Japanese characters on them, a kimono in a turquoise/green shade to compliment the red and various gold ornaments for a ledge above a fire place in a different room.

Looking back at my produced images I wish I had shot a few outside, in a concrete scene. This would have given an interesting contrast to the homely feel of my other images. Apart from that, i was happy with how the shoot turned out. 

Editing 

The editing of the images was inspired by both sections of the themes; the culture side was through gallery visits, but in particular, my personal culture. The art in my grandparents house is all Japanese and geisha inspired, much of it is traditional Japanese paintings on wood and parchment. This effect was almost sepia, muted colours with calligraphy. So on a few of my photo's I old-ified them, distressed the image, increased the noise, desaturated and added various layers and effects to produce this worn look. My other main inspirations were from photographers. Araki, a Japanese photographer was my first inspiration. These particular shots of his inspired some of my finals, the odd objects, bleak background, composition and red accent colour.

The next photographer was Juergen Teller, but in particular the still life collection and Celine editorials; the overexposed effects with saturated colours reminded me of the Geisha make up, and the look I tried to portray in both shoot and editing. 

The final influence was from Vivian Sassen, whose style is extremely contemporary, but in particular her Pop Magazine shoot. The surrealist nature drew the contemporary modern edge to my images.

With the planning of the shoot, I should have checked the weather in accordance with my day as then I would have been able to include some outside shots, unfortunately I shot my accessory on the day there were hurricane winds so going outside to shoot was impractical. However, I was still happy with the outcome, and with the edits. I feel they reflected my themes well and were strong finals.

Structure and Attachment | Accessory Photoshoot Mood Board

Following my maps and culture themes, I decided that as red is my colour and it is also the colour of prosperity in China, this therefore decided the Asian influence in my project. Luckily I have recently been to the V&A Asian exhibitions and looked at structure in Kimono's, origami and attention to detail in pattern, leading me to this path anyway. 

I wanted the shoot to be plain and simple, with Geisha-like make up with a modern twist. Chopsticks in the hair, bold eyebrows. Vogue Japan, Fashion Asia and a book called 'Zen in the Home' were my main inspirations, and I took images from these, along with others to create my boards. I decided not to use an Asian girl, but instead a Caucasian girl with similar features. This modernised the shoot and gave it a twist on the vintage Japanese look I was originally going for. 

Once I knew my influence for my shoot it was easy to find images that portrayed how I wanted it to look and inspiration for props and colouring. When I was looking through the Zen book I found a picture I knew would be a perfect set up; a grungy green coloured room with a single figure in the foreground. Other images I found that inspired the shoot included parasols, kimonos, red lips and odd bits and bobs scattered in rooms. I felt this mood board was more successful than my last, as I was greatly inspired by it and it was well balanced whilst the images still flowed. 

Structure and Attachment | Magical Mystery Fashion Tour

Pictures taken around London; 

Selfridges, Dover Street Market, Regents Street, Alexander Mcqueen Dover Street.

In preparation for this day trip, I looked up a few of the roads and places so I was aware of what kind of places I was be visiting and what to look out for when I got there. We met at 9.45 at Piccadilly Circus by the Eros Statue, then were free to go about as we wished. I stayed with three girls from the course, and we decided to hide from the rain and pop into McDonald's to check the map and plan out our route. By this point we were basically on Regents Street, so we started it there. We went into Burberry and asked the store manager about what it's like to work in a high fashion brand, she told us about the pace at which it moves, the classics like the trench coat and about the shop she worked in. The Burberry trench coat originated in the 1850's, around the time of the First World War as an alternative to the heavy serge greatcoats. As she had clients we couldn't hold her for long, but the information gathered was extremely interesting and she gets a pretty nice discount! 

Our next stop was Selfridges, we went straight to the womenswear floors and paraded around taking pictures of collections, details and installations that were either in our chosen colours (mine being red) or were inspiring either through structure or finishings. In particular I loved the Jean Paul Gaultier pop-up. I have recently been to his exhibition at the Barbican and it was lovey to see some of the pieces in the flesh and be able to try them on. As one of my themes is culture, his union jack stylised pieces, like the Gillet were fabulous. We saw a huge display of designers including Marni, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Comme Des Garcons, Wang, and Mcqueen.

We stopped off next at Dover Street Market, as I hadn't previously looked this up, I was slightly confused to see it was not exactly a market; more a collection of gallery-like showrooms, crazy installations and designer wear! I absolutely loved this place, and I am so glad we got a chance to visit it. Throughout the 6 or something floors, designer goodies are arranged among geometric wall designs. Each floor has a different 'theme' or feel to it, and although we weren't allowed to take pictures I took a few. 

I made sure we popped into the Alexander Mcqueen Store in Dover Street, which was on our way to our next stop: Berwick Street. It was beautiful, exhibiting an incredible sequinned knitted dress that Lily Allen modelled for GQ in. The shop assistants were lovely and allowed Bobbe (one of the girls I was with) to try on this digitally printed dress, we were told that it was designed using a placement print meaning it was made first and then the print was added. This made it almost impossible to alter, but at a couple thousand it wasn't the kind of dress you'd want to alter. The shop had interactive screens, so I signed up for the newsletter and emailed myself a current accessories picture, feeling it was appropriate due to the current workshop we're doing.

Finally we made our way to Berwick Street, a familiar street to me, having run errands there for Reiss when I interned there in Summer. I picked up red samples from all three Misan and Textiles shops and one from my favourite fabric shop 'Silk'. There was a massive jump in price range, from one end at around £9 per/m to a huge £210 per/m for hand beaded silk. Visiting fabric shops is really useful as it gives a realistic feel to what kind of fabrics are in the price range, and what's suitable for what designs. Whether the fabric can be machine sewn, hand cut, have darts added etc. Overall, I found the day extremely useful, I picked up samples, leaflets and took pictures, and we even had the chance to interview two very different fashion house employee's. On my way home I went via Jermyn Street, but as it was all menswear it was unhelpful to my project.

Structure and Attachment | Accessories Development

The next part of the Accessories workshop including scanning in our samples, and printing them whole on A3, 20 on an A4 page, and photocopying models and head shots to work onto. When we were photographing and scanning our objects I tried to keep everything as flat as possible, so the image produced was clearer. What I noticed about others work which helped me on my own was the smaller samples looked better, the finish was neater and they scanned into 2D well.

Throughout this development we did a rotation of 3 workshops. The first was making more samples, as I didn't bring in my original objects I searched around the building for various things to use, this included straws, cups, batteries, elastic bands and string. One machine we were introduced to was the heat press. This (depending on the plastic) melted separate objects flat together. If the plastic didn't melt, the heat flattened it and it re-hardened. I tried many objects on the heat press to see how they would look if their structure was altered. Elastic bands and small plastic objects like beads and buttons melted well, but straws and plastic cups would't melt, so simply flattened. Some objects others used that worked well was plastic dolls, plastic cutlery and gaffa tape. 

I enjoyed incorporating plastic into my accessory samples as it gave a new textures, however as plastic will only stick to plastic, it would be difficult to use it in my final. I found it hard to think of new ideas when not using the heat press, as I didn't have my original objects I couldn't 'develop' them as such, so instead I came up with new attachment or statement pieces that could be added to other designs.  The workshop was made harder to my disorganisation, so in future for general workshops I need to be aware of thinks to bring in, and what I need for which days. This will help my time management and through distressing, should make me more focused.

The second workshop was using our A3 print outs to pin onto the mannequin, which I really enjoyed, as seen in the images above I made hats, and bags. These looked great and gave me a better idea on what  I wanted my final to look like. The final workshop was using the 20 scans on the A4 which we cut out and stuck onto models and headshots, I'd say this workshop was the most useful as I was unsure on what to do for my final, but after placing my scans onto a model I could see what would work where and which materials I wanted to use.