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the reincarnation of old

Exploring the city of Birmingham, it is apparent to see new compete with old. Old in this context are all the buildings that were built in the 19th century whilst new in this context represents modernised buildings. In the 19th century, buildings were made with thoughtful detailing and for some buildings, there are pieces of art hidden in them. In today’s contemporary age, buildings are built with little to zero appreciation to detailing that touches up on art. I am going to gather up interesting details found on building built in the 19th century to inspire my work. There will integrate contemporary buildings too.

Objectives

Exploring details found on old buildings

To be able to pick out relevant details to focus on

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GARMENT COMPLETION

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This is completion of the garment.

Before, I had slit in the fabric but I covered it up with a triangle, it looks better finished that way. I decided to choose a comtemporay building to use as inspiration. I believe that there can be a harmonious cohesion between old and new if done right, my final garment is a testament to this claim, it is a combination of buildings in the past and present

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The from of the vest has button design and this is how I was made. First I drew a circle and then I put a square in the middle of the circle so that I can get half a circle sitting on top of each square. In the corner of the sketch book is a refined piece and how it will look like.

I was inspired by the book- Macchina Semplice. I like you can see the technical drawing of the door handle.

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I have a compilation of everything that has inspired the garment. On the left are all the primary and secondary pictures, in the middle is the refined piece of the garment and the on the right is what the garment will look like on a model.

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On this page of sketchbook, I have some details I want to put on my vest. I was inspired by the image in the book-architecture of England.

I have sewn 4 rectangle together to mimic a set of stairs.

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On this part of my sketchbook I have sewn with details the front of the vest. This is therefore a refined version of everything I was inspired by

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Although I said I was going to sew plates onto the fabric, after going through the book of Architecture, I came across this image of the gate. I like the arrows on the gate so I substituted the pleat idea for this on.

on the sketchbook page is mock of what the garment will look like and the drawn garment highlights the like of symmetry I mentioned before in the previous post.

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Here is a development of the key shape.

The lines going across the key shape of the garment was inspired by floor board. I am going to visually communicate the idea using plates- the sewing technique.

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FOUNDATION OF THE VEST.

I transitioned from a dress to a vest. With the time I have, I want to make a garment with line a of symmetry so that it will be simple to pattern cut and sew.

On the model is the key shape for the vest. I will refine and develop it on the next page of my sketchbook.

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In lesson, during a draping lesson, I used floral fabric to make the bottom half of the dress. Again I was inspired by the Balmain floral runway. Still, I had in mind the narrative of workwear reimagined inspired by construction that was going on in Birmingham.

What I draped on the stand is a reflection of the sketch I made.

My focus was on the bottom half of my sketch which is the dress, the top half which is the sleeve top was going to be inspired construction uniform.

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Tile; page 5

My final narrative revolves round architecture. As we know, buildings that were made in the 19th century were made with a lot of details, however, in comparison to most of the buildings we have today, it lacks details. My narrative recognises the details that were apparent on buildings in the 19th century and my final garment will be a reflection of the details that were apparent on buildings in the 19th century.

Below are some primary pictures of buildings I took that serves as an example and will also be used to inspire key shapes for my garment.

In the library, I came across an archictecture book- Archictecture of England. I was moved and inspired by this book, it had picture of historical buildings from the 18th century to date. This book will be the main source from which I will be getting secondary pictures.

(IMAGE 1)

(IMAGE2)

(IMAGE3)

My idea is to make a dress. On this particular page of my sketchbook, I have IMAGE 3. IMAGE 3 is a glass window with 2 pillars on both sides and an archictetural design on top of the glass window. The reason why I choose this image is because of the detail on top of the window. With a pair of scissors, I cut off the piece I wanted and glued it onto the desired part of the croquis model. I choose the hip section because the image, to me looks like part of a dress. From there, I made a refined version of the key shape with denim- in the right corner of my sketchbook. I choose denim because denim is durable and timeless, if you look at it from that perspective it makes sense to use denim because the details found on builds in the 19th century was durable and timeless. An article on fibre2fahion validates this claim; "denim is a forever classic"

I have transferred and glued the key shape from the previous page onto this page.The key shape from the previous page, on this page, I have coloured it blue as a visual representation of denim since I am going to use denim as my material. In the corner of my sketchbook is picture of an architectural design. I have isolated the part of the image I want with a red pen. On the tracing paper is the key I want to use to develop the garment. I have glued the key shape in the middle of the page to highlights its importance.

The red line is continuous, a slight resemblance to continuous line drawing. It demonstrate how the idea on this page doesn't just end there, it carries on onto the next page.

The red line goes up then down and then up again. In another interpretation, in relation to my narrative, it shows how buildings made in the late 19th century were popular in those times, however, we see less of that now as demonstrated by the line going down.

On this page is how the key shapes on the previous page, combined together, have been refined. On the left side of the sketchbook is a miniature version of the key shapes. I chose to make it small so that the refined shape on the right side of the sketchbook stands out. In the right corner of the page is a combination of a sketch and fabric merged together. This is to demonstrate how I am merging architecture, an art that uses pencil as its main tool with fashion.

This is further development of the previous key shapes with an additional key shape. The image used here was found in Architecture of England. It is an image of a window. The image inspired the slit in the bottom half of the dress.

Now it is time to make the top half of the dress. I was heavily inspires by the late Virgil, the owner of OFF WHITE. His runway in 2022 had Bella Hadid wearing a dress to which I was inspired by. With the understanding of the Off White dress in mind, I glued onto the croquis figure some key shapes. The Off WHITE dress is made to look puffer. I was inspired by that and it is evident in the key shapes I choose to use on the croquis figure. The concrete circle on the croquis figure represents how I want the dress to have a puffer effect.

Yarwood.D,(1963),The Architecture Of England from the prehistoric Times to the present Day,London:Beccles.

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vougueIndia,(2024),poetryisbackinfashion.Available at:https://www.vogue.in/content/why-poetry-is-back-in-fashion[accessed 20 May 2024]

TITLE: A summary of all my narrative, the process that took place before I got my final narrative. Page1/2 of my sketchbook.

For my first narrative I was inspired by an article in vogue India. In the article, it mentioned Valentino, and how they invited a group of poets to inspire "a series of their garments". Mustafa the poet was one of the people who were given the privilege to collaborate with Valentino. Mustafa is an inspiration of mine when it comes to poetry, he is part of the reason why I was inspired to transform words into a garment, the image at the top of the blog post, from Valentino, was also part of the inspiration. I had a poem ready and I was going to try my best and translate the words into something visual i.e. a garment. I was going to use colour psychology, using colours like red to portray anger and blue to portray tranquillity.The concept of using colour as a way of communicating emotions came from a magazine I read- In the magazine---- used coloured filter to communicate how certain weather seasons made her feel. As mentioned, as inspired by her, I was going to transform certain adjectives in the poem as colour, as part of the making of the garment. During the research phase, I found that I was relying heavily on a lot of secondary research and not too much primary research. This a was a problem because it meant that my work and final result wouldn't have been full authentic without many primary research.

when I changed narrative a second time, I was inspired by construction work that was going on in Birmingham. The current narrative- exploring women's wear with the understanding of the construction work that is going on in my environment- Birmingham. I was inspired by two different brands in the fashion industry- BALAIN and OFF-WHITE.

VirgilAblohcreatesParisLandmarkandskycraperpufferjacketsforlouisvuittion(2021),VirgilAblohcreatesParisLandmarkandskycraperpufferjacketsforlouisvuittion.Avialable at:https://www.dezeen.com/2021/01/22/virgil-abloh-paris-landmarks-louis-vuitton-fall-winter-collection[Accessed 20 May].

For my second narrative- making a garment with the understanding and inspiration of the construction work that is going on in my environment. The pictures below inspire the sketch of the dress, the first two are primary and the other secondary. The orange colour is significant to construction workwear and the flower petals are significant to rose flowers in the primary image. The image on the right encompasses a summary of all my ideas- I was going to merge together a sleeve and a dress together and it would have been made possible with a zipper. Obviously, more research would have been acquired to make the final result more interesting.

Fashionista,(2024)BalmainSpring2024WasAllRoses(Despite that one thorn),https://fashionista.com/2023/09/balmain-spring-2024-collection-review#gid=ci02ca744e50002779&pid=balmain-paris-fashion-week-spring-2024-collection-002[Accessed 20 May 2024]

From there I was later inspired by the city and how it interacts with the weather. This is where i started to work practically in sketchbook.

To get my key shapes I made a mood board in relation to my narrative.

My first focus was on windows from city buildings. That is what inspired the key shapes in pages 1 and 2 of my sketchbook. On the 2 page of my sketchbook, I have connected 3 squares together, part of the inspiration came from this image on instagram.

On the third page of my sketchbook , with denim, I put together 3 squares as a visual representation of windows. Before I was able to do that, I made a mood board of windows which inspired the square shapes.

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page 14/15

When I was in Ghana in February, The No.1 hotel building on Oxford road caught my interest. I was mesmerised by the architecture of the building; it reminds me of the game Jenga. The owner the building- Nana Kwame Beiako, he is known as one of the richest young people in Ghana. This is evidence that the younger generation are innovating in their thinking. 

I photocopied two of the images. One represents the older generation and the one on the right represents the younger generation. 

To visually communicate the older generation, I have cut the buildings into sections. With a glue stick, I rearrange the pieces of the building. Already, the building looks abstract however, I have put further on the abstract nature of the building by gluing them further apart. I want to visually communicate how the mindset of the older generation are imbalance.

At the conner of the right page is the same building, this time it represents the younger generation. When I tried to use reverse appliqué as a technique, the paper kept ripping. So, what I did was glue the papers together. I cut the windows out of the picture to reveal what is underneath. It visually communicated how the younger generation are mentally bright within them. 

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page 12/13

I have used pin tucks and embroidery to visually communicate my narrative. In lesson, pin tucks were something I found slightly challenging when I first got introduce. When I was sewing, it was difficult for me to sew in straight lines. Now with a bit of practice, I can now sew in straight lines when I am using the technique of pintucks.

I went for the blue and white fabric for the pintucks, this is because it mimics the same colour as the sea. To connect the image and the fabric together, I used the wire brush to pull out threads from the fabric. The fluffy nature of the fabric resembles the waves of the sea.

I have continued the narrative onto the next page, this time I used embroidery to visually communicate my narrative. The embroidered piece is the continuation of the waves, this time they are a different colour- black and blue.

The black ways represent the older generation and the blue waves underneath the black waves represent the older generation. Just like the last time, I have given the older generation respect by representing them first and on top.

Both pages visually communicate how the older generation like to go back and forth with the younger generation in terms of the way they both think. I chose to use a picture of the sea to encapsulate this narrative. This is because sea waves have a back and forth motion to them.

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page 8,9,11

On this part of my sketchbook, I decided to use 3 pages to visually communicate my narrative. Even though I used 3 separate, all 3 pages come together to communicate one holistic narrative. On the first page I have a picture of an eye, my eye.

I took the picture with my front camera, yes the process of taking the picture was easy but it would have been easier if someone had taken it for me.

The eye on this first page represents the younger generation and the way they see the world. Before I go into details, I was meant to represent the older generation starting from the left side to the right in my sketchbook pages. This layout- representing the older generation on the left side of my sketchbook is meant to be layout technique that runs throughout my sketchbook however, I've messed up the layout technique a few times.

With a knife cutter, I cut out the pupil and replaced it with a painting that visually communicate my narrative. I used the colours red, yellow, green, they represent the Ghana flag and orange represents optimism.

Ghana is going through a lot because of the way the older generation think but the younger generation are the once who are being penalised for their inconsiderate actions. I used 32 dots to represent the Ghanaian flag. I separated the dots to visually communicate how broken Ghana is as a country.

So even though the younger generation live on broken land they still persevere their environment through an optimistic lens

visually communicating/representing Ghana with 32 dots was an inspiration I got from 'the princes of polka dots'- Yayoi Kusama. She is a Japanese artist and polka dots is her main art style.

She had an exhibition in Salford in July 2023 and I had the opportunity to go and see it.

Yayoi Kusama uses one colour for her polka dots but I used different colours to visually communicate my narrative.

There isn't any significance behind the colours I choose, the aim was to construct a fabric with lots of colours to represent the younger generation. I achieved my desired outcome through the technique of heat pressing and disperse dye. In lesson, with synthetic fabric, i used a thick brush to make wavy patterns and this is the outcome.

When it was time to further develop my work in embroidery, I found that the fabric was too small and it couldn't fit the size of the hoop. To overcome this obstacle, I stitch on extra fabric so that it was big enough to fit the hoop. For there, I was able to, with a free hand stitch on the sewing machine, embrued on the tears outlined on the fabric.

After I was done, I removed the extra fabric and I was left with my desired outcome.

With a pair of scissors, I cut the fabric which I have further developed with embroidery into tear drop shapes and collage them underneath the eye.

It visually communicates how the younger generation have no choice than to be optimistic in a broken country and as a result of that they cry tears of hope.

On page 2/3, I use cubism to visually communicate my narrative. In the middle of the page is again, a picture of my eye. I have deliberately cut a hole where the pupil is meant to be. So, if you look through the hole and you direct your gaze onto either the left or right side of the page, you will see the pupil of either the younger generation or the older generation.

In my previous blog, I mentioned Ruth Faison Shaw and how she is known as an art therapist, here on this page, I was able to bring the concept of me being a mediator and an art therapist for both generation to life. So, the reason I am in the middle of both generation is because I can see both sides of the story. 

. I used cubism to visually communicate a representation of myself. Cubism plays on perspective; it is a technique where artist like Picasso paints 3d images is if it was 2d. People consider cubism to be different from other art techniques in the world of art. This links to my narrative, I am different in my culture, sometimes, I often go against cultural norms and values, by doing this, I get stared at in a very uncomfortable manner by mainly people from the older generation.  They have a mindset that doesn’t embrace chance. So, in this context cubism is used to visually communicate how I get singularise by the older generation whenever I try and do something outside the box.

Even though I was inspired by Picasso, I also got inspiration from Slawn Olaolu’s painting- Self-portrait. In the painting, he accentuates the lips and the eyebrows of his subject.

Reference

Artsy,2023,Slawn:on a darker note https://www.artsy.net/artwork/slawn-self-portrait,18/11/23.

I transferred elements of Slawn’s work and applied it to my work.

The lips and the head are the same colour- red. The way the younger generation think is ever so apparent in the way they talk. However, because we are young, the older generation do not take into consideration what the youth have to say. They see us a joke, the way I have visually communicated it is by painting a pink tongue coming out of the red lips.

When you look closely, you will see a tear coming down my eye at the same time touching my “nose”. 

I used a traditional Ghanaian instrument; ntwamu to visually communicate my ‘nose’.

REFERENCE

Ghanagoods (2013) Ghanagoods 2013 Available at: https://ghanagoods.co.uk[ Accesses 21 November 2023]

Ntwamu was used to make announcements in small communities. The person making the announcement, with a stick, will hit hard on the instrument which is made from metal. Now that I have explained the significance behind the nose and the teardrop, the between the tear and the nose is: tears are not enough to draw the attention of the people who are meant to be listening- the older generation. They are too close minded to listen.

On page 3/3 I have collage a picture of my eye, this time the eye represents the older generation. where the pupil is meant to be, I have replaced it with dark colours. This it to further put emphasises on how the older generation see and think in a ridged way.

With the same technique as the last one, I used free hand stitching on the sewing machine and embroidered on the black and white fabric. I used dark threads to visually communicate how the older generation even when they come across as vulnerable, they are still negative about it

I made the fabric in print lesson. I used technique called screen printing.  I chose a print board which had my desired pattern. I cut a circle in scrap piece of paper to isolate the section that I wanted.

I further developed my work from print in embroidery to make one big teardrop. I call this mono-tear. Because the older generation are suffering from the same trauma, generational trauma that has been pass on from generation to generations. They are going through the same psychological pain, so they cry the same tears thus affecting the way their mind works.

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page6/7

Ghana is an agricultural country that deal in timber as export. The green in the Ghana flag represent agriculture. Because of this reason, when I saw the huge naked tree on my way to university, I knew I had to implement it in my work to visually communicate my narrative. The tree, tall and big also reminded me of similar trees back home in Ghana.

In the evening around 4pm when the sun was almost down, I went out with my camera and took some shots of the tree. I purposely went around this time to avoid any direct harsh light from the sun subsequently ruining my desired outcome of the picture. The aim was- to take a picture without using low exposure but at the same time, end up with a picture where everything including the main subject- the tree looks dark so, during sunset was a perfect time.

Before I started with my methodology, I considered how I want to visually communicate my narrative in my sketchbook in terms of layout.  I considered negative space and the sizing of my subject which is the tree in this case. So, I decided to print my work on an A3 paper in order to scale up my subject- the tree, so that its big enough to fit ¾ of my sketchbook, leaving enough negative space to further develop my primary picture. The reason I decided to scale up the picture on an A3 paper is because I didn’t want to undermine the real-life size of the tree especially when I am going to use it to visually communicate a generation so powerful and mighty-the Older generation.

It may sound like I am contradicting myself since I have portrayed the Older generation in a not so positive way, but I am not. The Older generation are mighty and powerful even with their flaws i.e., having a black and white mindset. So, I didn’t want to take that away from them by down scaling the image.

After printing out the image on an A3 paper, I went ahead and cut around the tree in order to isolate the tree from the background. Cutting around the tree was not so simple, the tree had irregular sides which made it a bit tricky to cut with clean precision but, since I didn’t cut with scissors but instead with a knife cutter, I was able to get the results I wanted.

Now that I have my subject- the tree, isolated, I was now ready to move on to the next step. 

The paper- the background of the tree, I am still deciding if I should throw it away or use it to visually communicate my narrative. So far, I have come up with one idea and that is- use the remainder paper to visually communicate the younger generation by using blow painting technique. This is because blow painting is one of the playful ways children paints. It involves blowing air through a straw to make intricate patterns. I can further describe how blow painting as a technique is playful like that of the younger generation’s mindset

I cut the tree in half and collage them on my sketchbook page leaving space in-between the split paper tree. Then with my thumb and black paint, I filled in the gap with paint, using my fingerprint as a tool to visually communicate my narrative.

The inspiration for the technique I used – finger painting, was from the artist/ Art therapist- Ruth Faison Shaw.

Reference

(2006)’Ruth Faison Shaw: First Lady of Finger painting (THE ARTS)’. vol.21(10) (October 2006)

‘In the article, the origin of finger painting, relative to shaw’s life, unravels. Leonardo, member of the royal family cuts himself in lesson. Shaw responded by aiding the child with iodine. Unsupervised, the child smeared iodine on the bathroom walls. Intrigued by this phenomenon, she was able to use what she had learned to help delinquents and people who were mentally ill.’

Leonardo, the boy who cut himself was able turn pain into art.

Highlighting the flaws of the Older generation. i.e., visually communicating the mindset of the Older generation in nothing but with dark colours is beautiful and painful at the same time. I am turning a sensitive topic into art and that is why I resonate with the art technique and the story at the same time.

When I was dissolving the embroidered leaves, I found that one of the leave was unable to dissolve properly, so I ended up with something that didn’t look like a leaf. Still I was able to implement it in my work. The narrative I gave the “ruined” embroidered leaf is; the older generation are imperfect just like the failed embroidered leaf.

I stitched the embroidered leaves onto real leaf autumn leaves with a green thread. The green thread represents green in the Ghana flag which also stands for agriculture.

At the bottom of the page, I have a piece of green fabric with roots sewn into it. The green fabric represents the soil. The fabric has texture so it was a good representation for the soil/ground and The roots sewn onto the fabric demonstrate how stubborn the older generation are, their mindset is like the roots, they sink deep into the soil, clutching onto each particle of the soil making it hard to uproot/change their mind.

I decided to expand the same narrative onto the next page. My aim is to visually communicate how both generations are identical and the difference between them is the way they think, their mindset. For the older generation I used black paint to visually communicate their mindset and the way they think. On this part of the page, I used a range of colours to visually communicate the younger generation.

With the same technique- finger painting, I painted in order, red, yellow, green, colours of the Ghana flag, underneath the colours of the Ghana flag are a range of colours that makes up the stem and roots of the tree.

Here, I have visually communicated how the younger generation are culturally innovative but at the same time they can freely express themselves, they are not grounded like the older generation are. For the leaves, I used reverse appliqué technique. I used two fabrics, one fabric is yellow, and the other fabric has a combination of different colours. I stitch both fabrics together to create an outline of leaves, after, I cut around the outline of the leaves and cut the top layer of the fabric to reveal the bottom layer.

 The leaves represents, again the mindset of the younger generation, it is as colourful as the leaves, meaning their thinking is filled with good innovative ideas.