Mollys journal

During this weeks lesson, we began to widen our ideas and explore what type of objects we liked and how we could potentially look into this to give us inspiration to go down our own path to create our object for later purposes.

Firstly, once arriving to our lesson, we were put into tutorial groups. Whilst waiting for my group to be see by our lecturer, I started to look back at the presentation we were shown to look for some inspiration on what I could potentially do. Looking through, the pictures that stood out to me were the light photos and how they and an object portrayed different outcomes in different angles. This was something I could potentially bring together with my subject Fashion Design.

During our tutorial, we all had to introduce ourselves and explain our ideas. You could definitely see our individuality within one another due to our ideas and opinions which I found quite interesting to see. Once I had explained my ideas, and expressed that I was still quite unsure on how I could bring It all together, my tutor gave me feedback and ideas on what I could do which could lead me down several paths. My tutor mentioned that I could potentially start off by portraying one of my garments that I had created in front of a lightning in various places, angles and so on to see the different outcomes and what they portray.  I really liked this idea as I was unsure on how I could bring fashion into this field as fashion always has a outcome for a specific theme which is very different to this field.

After our tutorials, we had a lecture which explored the field object more to help us understand the topic more and develop our ideas, which then was followed with a quick session showing how we had developed our research more.

 

 

 

After our first lecture and introduction with our tutor we were then able to visit London as part of our research. During the London trip I was able to see multiple objects that ranged from anything that gave me inspiration on what I could potentially do. 

As London is such a large place there were so many different styles and aesthetics that you could bring into your project object.

During my time in London I was able to visit a few places such as the V&A. The V&A had various sections that ranged from designer clothing to historical ornaments and so on. Whilst visiting this museum I was able to see, touch and hear about all of the objects and their purpose. I was mostly intrigued by the clothing as being a Fashion Design student myself. Each garment had a background of their own to why they were made, the inspiration resulting into the clothing and why they’re here today at the V&A.

I also visited the national museum which had a lot of historical context there. This was really interesting for me as I got to see fossils, skulls mammals etc that were once walking around one this earth.

As a fashion student I wanted to look at the high end streets with designer brands to explore their trends and creations to help me get inspired by brining my object future forward.

Yesterday we started our first session of Object.

Firstly, we were told to bring in objects and place them on the side ready to use later. Once we had done this we were given a presentation on what the Field would cover, over the next five weeks we will be exploring objects and uncovering their meanings and potential meanings to widen our understanding in a designers way. We were shown various different styled objects, whether it was digital, outside, inside, the space around us, metaphorically, and so on. Whilst watching the presentation, I was quite unsure on what this field was about and what we will be learning from it that would help with our course. Towards the end of the presentation we were told that we would be picking one of the objects from the side In groups, to try decode it and how we would display it.

Once put Into our groups, we all agreed on one object that stood out to us the most. This object was an old red/orange metal box with a lock and chain wrapped around it.

As a group we created a mind map, that studied this box in a narrative way and other ways.

One of the ideas that we came up with that stood out to me the most was the idea of the metal chain being there as a aesthetic or was it there as a purpose? Perhaps the chain was there to keep something locked away that only the owner knew about? The box made you look into various scenarios and made your thoughts explore different ideas. Was the box from the war? Why was it red? You don’t really know, all you know is what you think you know which makes the object very powerful.

Once we had decoded the objects, as groups we all presented our ideas and gave one another feed back.

After Lunch we then started on how we would display our objects.

Once getting my story and muse I was then able to begin my toile development.

Firstly I started off with creating a few drawings of my design, this progress started off rather slow as I was struggling to get inspiration and ideas from my head. However, after a little while and doing some deeper research I was able to build a portfolio of potential designs in which I could develop into my toile.

I decided to create a toile that would have a wrap dress on the upper half with organza flowing balloon arms. The lower half would be a rouched skirt that would be a black cotton with pattern.

Creating my upper half pattern pieces were very simple, meaning I was able to create first attempts to see what it would look like on the mannequin.

Even though I loved the upper half, once starting the lower half, I noticed that the skirt did not match the upper half in person. This meant I was going to have to change my design slightly. Changing the skirt was quite tricky for me as I was struggling on what to do. Because of this I decided to carry on with the upper half first to get that finished.

Firstly, I started off with sewing the organza black fabric sleeves together with a ribbon attached to each one, creating the balloon effect. Once I had done this I attached the sleeves to the upper bodice creating the first layer. After this I then started to create the under layer which was the white high neck ribbed top.

Completing the upper half of my design meant I was back to creating my skirt. After a long time of playing around with the fabric I was able to create an A-line skirt. I decided to keep the skirt straight and simple as Renli’s skirts are all simple, but have some sort of textured fabric on top to make It stand out.

Once sewing the skirt onto the bodice, I was then able to play around with frills that I had created to put onto the skirt.

As you can see from the images, the frills had been placed in different places. I didn’t like how the frills looked in the first image, so I decided to keep them level in one place instead, shown in the second image.

 

As Renli su’s designs are quite historical based, I wanted to pick a muse that fitted well with the historical side, but also fitted well with the character Cathy as I was looking Ito her more, rather than the whole story.

The muse I decided to use was Kiera Knightley. I wanted to use her as my muse as she’s played several characters that are based in an olden timed film and she is quite a dominant yet simple person which is what I wanted.

 

For myself, I found it quite challenging to find a story that fitted with the theme Avant-Garde for a while as I was still trying to wrap my head around the brief.

After researching and developing my knowledge within the brief, I was able to find a story that fitted well with the theme. This story was Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights is a story based on a couples love that is greater than all. However, even though the love was very strong, the girl Cathy fell in love with another man. But this love was more of a comfortable love, rather a passionate love. This caused a lot of distress and heartbreak for the man, Heathcliff which resulted in Cathy coming home In the bad weather. Due to the bad weather, Cathy unfortunately became sick and died. Even though she had died, her soul remained with Heathcliff, proving love is still there, even after death.

With this story, as there is a lot of grief, darkness and ghosts i felt as thought this fitted extremely well with avant-garde as I would be able to create something dark, Grotesque perhaps and layered.

As our first term approached, we were given our first brief which was a collab with Renli Su.

Renli su is a fashion designer based in London founded in 2014.  Her designs are mainly based on her Love for historical clothing/backgrounds and her curiosity towards the human spirit and nature. Renli tends to characterise her clothing through some form of romance or story, giving her pieces a meaning. Her silhouettes are free and soft with carefully detailed elements added to them.

During this collaboration, we were given three themes, Nature, Fairy girl ad Avat-Garde.

FAIRY GIRL: ROMANCE IS CONSIDERED THROUGH A FEMININE WAY WHICH IS INSPIRED BY THE VICORIAN ERA. FABRICS ARE LIGHT WEIGHT.

NATURAL: CONSIDERATE DETAILING WITH A CLEAN SILHOUETTE CREATED WITH NATURAL FIBRES AND CRAFTSMANSHIP.

AVANT-GARDE: DARK EMOITIONS ARE EXPRESSED WITH EXPERIMENTAL SILHOUETTES AND BEAUTIFUL DETAILINNG.

With these themes we needed to find a story that would fit well with the theme.

After researching and looking into other designers, along side Renli I decided to pick the theme Avant-Garde and the story Wuthering Heights as they both fitted well with eachother and my ideas.

 

I feel as though the photoshoot turned out really well as the model had a quirky edge to her which made the outfit look even better. I also feel as though the poses were very simplistic which meant the attention was all on the shirt.

The bright socks also tied I well with the shirt and created a balance which again created the full look.

Within the digital side of the photoshoot, I wanted to add CAD drawings to the images to enhance the photos and create a more appealing page for the viewers to see. By doing this, the shirt would be much more noticeable and eye catching which is what I want.

After finishing the toile, I was able to start making my final garment. First of all I collected my used fabric which was bed sheets from my house and dyed the specific fabrics fuchsia pink ready to cut out with my pattern pieces.

Once this was done I was able to pin my pieces together and cut the fabric out ready to sew. Before sewing the button stand, I had to sew the clips into place on the shirt where the bra straps would go, being able to attach and detach. By adding clips to the shirt, this meant the straps could be optional, depending o what the buyer likes.

After attaching the straps I was then able to move onto the sewing part of the button stand and attaching the front to the back. 

Looking at my garment so far I felt as though it was a bit boring being one length so I decided to be creative and cut half of the front off and adding other bra strap to the bottom, giving it more of an edge ad my style to it. Cutting the front was definitely a good idea to me as I really like how it was looking as it had more character.

After this I then added the fuchsia pink sleeves, pocket and collar to the shirt.

Looking at the photos above you can see the shirt coming along well, showing that traditional Whistles shirt look with a twist of Off-White/Streetwear into it.

After this all that was needed to do was as the buttons to the shirt.

Looking at the final garment, I am really pleased with what I created ad how I’ve developed my skills within this first year. I feel as though it shows off my style and what I wanted to produce.

During this brief, I have created various fabric samples ranging from pockets, cuffs, prints etc which has developed my skills within the technical side of Fashion. Being able to express myself through manipulating fabrics has helped me along the way to change and add certain bits to my design such as adding bra straps, cutting into the fabric and so on.

Whilst creating my toile I was able to see that my original design was slightly boring which then meant I needed to play around with some fabrics to create a more exciting piece whilst also adding my own style into it. From doing this, I not only developed my fabric skills, but came up with a few ideas on how I could vamp up my shirt.