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Written statement - Story

My beautiful mother is from Peshawar, Pakistan. After graduating from medical college, she moved to Ireland where she met my dad. My mom has a beautiful and unique history and it’s something I’ve always been fascinated by. As I grew up listening to her stories, I became intrigued by the Pakistani culture. I believe my love of fashion and sewing came from my mom. She taught me how to embroider and cross stitch as a child, which are crafts associated with the Pakistani culture. As my love of sewing developed, my aunt started sending me ornate embroidered fabrics, appliqués and lace, which were produced in Pakistan. I decided to further research Pakistani culture and crafts in my project and use this to inspire my 6 look lineup.

While researching, I became fascinated by Pakistani craftsmanship including embroidery, block printed Ajrak cloth, Kashi tiles, Kashi pottery and Pakistani architecture. Vibrant colours and patterns are an integral part of each of these crafts. These were the elements that inspired my 6 look lineup.

My designs celebrate traditional Pakistani handicrafts and their distinctive use of colour. My garments combine contemporary silhouettes with the traditional techniques of ancient era.

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Final 6 look lineup

My illustrations started as drawings of my mom which I brought into photoshop and added drawings of bodies to. I then printed them off and hand drew my garments onto them and rendered them using promarker.

I went back to my mood board and added in key inspiration images and updated my colour palette.

My colour palette was inspired by photos I found of mom and her friends. I picked out the colours I was drawn to. I went through my sketchbook and cut out pieces of my paintings and sketches that I enjoyed the colours of. I cut out squares of my old scrap fabrics to use in my garment, I sewed them all together to create an new textile. I experimented with pairing complimentary colours and also “L shape” colour combinations on the colour wheel.

I made paintings based on the Kashi pottery I was researching. I used promarkers to recreate the patterns on the Kashi tiles. I did further studies of the patterns I found by overlapping them, printing them and cutting into them. I made abstract drawings based on the patterns I found using techniques like continuous line, extended pen and blind drawing.

My silhouettes are inspired by Kashi pottery. I studied these by painting them and creating mini clay versions. I then collaged these paintings onto croquis using rough sketches to plan out my ideas.

Sketchbook flick through

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I sewed my garment together and then added some more embroidery. My dress has a diagonal cut inspired by a Sari and a layered skirt inspired by the Kashi pottery I was researching.

When I was happy with my garment I organised a photoshoot in my apartment. I booked Danny @k00249113 as my photographer and Kate @k00258269 as my creative director was very happy with how my photos came out and I definitely couldn’t have done it without them! We messed around with using different coloured fabric as backdrops and tried to recreate a Pakistani style interior set.

I messed around with the photos in photoshop and added in a strip of embroidery as a border.

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After spending some time on embroidery, I decided to make a garment. I started cutting out squares of multicoloured fabrics which was inspired by the Kashi tiles I researched. I wanted to use as much colour as I could as Pakistan is such a colourful vibrant country. I wanted to use a zero waste approach, so I used cut offs and scraps from my previous projects.

I stared draping my fabric on my mannequin to figure out positioning. I decided to do a diagonal neckline, inspired by the diagonal cut of a Sari.

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I attended Michelle’s 3 weeks of workshops and found them really beneficial. For the first workshop we studied a Bosch painting ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’. I really enjoyed studying the textures and shapes in this painting.

For the second week, we brought our own source. I chose a photo of Kashi pottery because I really liked the silhouettes and patterns in the image. We used different mark making exercises like extended pen, drawing with few lines and drawing with a continuous line. These methods helped create more gestural, abstract drawings.

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I did the garment reposition workshop with Giordanna. I decided to relate my work to my project by using Pakistani Sari’s and Kurta’s. These worked really well for me as they provided me with long, light fabric that was easy to drape.

After draping the clothes, I was drawn to the Sari I was using. I continued to use this fabric to drape on my mannequin.

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My research inspired me to learn embroidery! As I am only a beginner, I started off doing embroidery on little squares of fabric. After learning some techniques I became a little addicted and I’ve decided to make a dress that will be heavily embroidered.

Because of how colourful and ornate the Pakistani work I was researching is, I decided to use as many colours as I could in my embroidery work. I was inspired by the Kashi tiles I was researching to replicate the tile motif through patchwork.

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I discovered some amazing designers! Stella Jean, Hassan Sheheryar Yasin and Ali Xeeshan.

Stella Jean incorporates embroideries and craftsmanship from Pakistan. This is definitely something I would like to do with my collection. She uses elements of cricket uniforms and a really vibrant colour palette.

HSY combines contemporary silhouettes with traditional techniques. I love his use of colours, intricate embroidery and cultural aesthetic.

Ali Xeeshan pushes boundaries of conventional thought and design and changes the definition of conservatism.

I love that all 3 of these designers marry Pakistani culture with western culture and pay homage to the Pakistani artisans.

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I started making rough sketches inspired by collages. I experimented with printing photos at different scales, breaking down and rearranging shapes to create new silhouettes and multiplying and layering shapes to create new silhouettes.

After this I tried to create cleaner illustrations inspired by my rough sketches. I wasn’t too happy with the designs so I’ll definitely be doing some more iterations.

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After researching Kashi tiles, I tried recreating the patterns in my sketchbook. I love the bright colours and loud patterns that the kashigars use.

After researching the Ajrak, which is a block printed fabric, I decided to try make my own block print. Unfortunately I couldn’t get Lino to make a limo print, so I improvised by sewing wool through cardboard and using acrylic paint to print into my sketchbook.

It definitely didn’t come out well but it was a fun experiment and I think it created an interesting texture that might be nice in a collage later.

After falling in love with the Kashi tiles, I decided to research the Pakistani architecture. I found some really interesting shapes that could be used as silhouettes and even more patterns!

After researching the architecture I thought about researching sport. I’m not too interested in sport but I was really drawn to the cricket uniforms. As I was looking at the cricket uniforms, I found some really interesting seams on the cricket ball. I thought these stitches would be a perfect detail to include in my designs.

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After researching and planning out my project, I gathered some of my moms old photographs and started making a mood board in photoshop.

I pulled out the colours I was drawn to and I used images that had interesting patterns and silhouettes.

I did some sketches of my mom, because I wanted my illustrations to have a personal touch. I also drew out some bodies that I could use as croquis for my collages. I also pomade some paintings in my sketchbook that were inspired by Kashi pottery. I loved the bright colours and shapes. I didn’t have any tracing paper, so I made my own by painting vegetable oil on top of paper and allowing it to dry. Using this tracing paper, I traced over my paintings and picked out elements that I could take inspiration from.

I used photoshop to turn my sketches into croquis and then collage photos of my paintings on top. I thought I created some really interesting silhouettes and it gave me a lot of ideas for garments I could design. After this I was inspired to recreate the shapes in clay (thank you Kate for letting me use some of your clay).

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I started my project based on the title ‘STORY’ by creating a mind map. Something I felt drawn to was exploring my family history and cultural background. This topic conjured up beautiful images in my mind and since I’m focusing on fashion design, I thought it would make an interesting and personal fashion collection.

My beautiful Mother is from Peshawar, Pakistan. After graduating medical college, she moved to Ireland where she met my dad. My mom has a beautiful and unique history and it’s something I’ve always been fascinated by. As I grew up listening to her stories, I became intrigued by the Pakistani culture. I believe my love of fashion and sewing came from my mom. She taught me how to embroider and cross stitch when I was a child, which are crafts associated with the Pakistani culture. As my love of sewing developed, my aunt started sending me ornate embroidered fabrics, appliqués and lace, which were produced in Pakistan. I would like to further research Pakistani culture and crafts in my project and use this to inspire my 6 look line up.

I started researching methods of fabric printing, fabric dying, tile making, ceramics and embroidery in Pakistan. I took notes and did some mark making in my sketchbook.

I loved the bright colours and patterns that are associated with the culture. I’d love to use these as textile inspiration and I’d like to use the shapes of the pottery as silhouettes for my line up.

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Project statement:

My project explores The Slow Fashion Movement - the movement of designing, creating and buying garments for quality and longevity. It encourages slower production schedules, fair wages, lower carbon footprints and zero waste. My project focuses on the denim industry, where there is an excessive consumption of water and water pollution. I draw inspiration from water movement for my source images, colour, shape, texture and motifs.

I explore this through my electives:

-Fashion design

-Photography

-Sculpture.

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Ideas development sketchbook

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I attended Shelagh’s Camera obscura workshop. After this, I blacked out my windows and set up. My apartment is quite dark so it didn’t work out too well for me, but I was able to make out the shape of the trees outside my window when I held an A2 page in front of the hole.

I also experimented with some drawing with light after seeing a similar image in Paul’s presentation.

I used a mirror to pick up the reflection of the light, similar to the way water reflects the sky.

In Paul’s presentation, I came across an artist called Azuma who photographed flowers inside ice. This inspired me to make ice sculptures. I wrote messages promoting The Slow Fashion movement and froze them inside the ice. I wanted the messages to be revealed as the ice melts.

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After attending Gemma’s cyaotype workshop, I got the materials from college and tried it out!

I started with the method of placing objects on the paper.

Unfortunately the results weren’t great for the images I created that related to my project but I also decided to do one for fun by placing a flower on it. This one turned out the best.

I then tried the method of printing out an image on acetate. The ink didn’t stick to the acetate very well so the image came out quite blurry.

I researched Julie Millowick and Helen Barff. I thought their work was really interesting as they merge fashion with cyanotype.

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https://youtu.be/7Bq06bPkNe4

I composed a video based on my theme - The Slow Fashion Movement. This video features shots I took of my sculpture work, as well as my fashion work using my friends dslr. I saw it as an opportunity to tie all three of my electives together as well as relating back to my theme. Watch with the sound on! For the audio, I recorded various sounds of water and layered them on top of each other using varying tempos and volumes.