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Empathy and ethics workshop

For the fashion workshop we had to watch the documentary The True Cost, which is about how bad fast fashion is. Then we chose one of our garments and discover where it was made, designed, what the workers living and working conditions were...

It was very interesting to do this, even though it was also a bit depressing because of the (often) horrible working conditions of the sewers.

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Fashion design/textiles - Designs

Lastly, we began making some designs by using the swatches we had made, photocopying them and reducing them in size, and then looking at the forms, how it would fit on a body - would it be a nice top? or a nice part of a dress? a shoulder? - or just integrating the swatches as drawings.

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Fashion design/textiles - Textile swatches

As second part of our brief, we had to choose 2 textile techniques that we would try to make a series of swatches. I chose Sashiko, Japanese embroidery, and smocking (both English and Canadian)

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Fashion design/textiles - Smocking

English smocking is basically embroidering in a certain way on pleated fabric, which in turn gives it different forms, depending on where the stitch is, how many pleats are taken in... It also makes a big difference whether you chose a same coloured thread or another one, which can bring someone's attention either to the forms coming from the smocking or to the colours and the pattern the different stitches form.

Canadian smocking is a bit different, it doesn't use already pleated fabric but instead it gathers the fabric in ways that then make unexpected forms (Jasmin flowers for example).

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Fashion design/textiles - Sashiko

Sashiko is Japanse embroidery that has existed since at least the 13th century - so for nearly 900 years. It was mostly used by fisherman and working families to mend clothes, because of the very strict hierarchy that didn't always let them buy new -and expensive - fabrics. To still have an aesthetic side to their mended clothes they began using visible mending, giving the stitches different forms/designs like dragons, bamboo, water...

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Fashion design/textiles - Moodboard

To make my moodboard I first did all my research on Do Ho Suh. After doing it, I chose the works that I liked the most and printed them as well as drew them in different styles - making hand drawings or using tracing paper.

After doing that I moved on to cutting things out, photocopying, and placing everything in different places to see how it turned out and using a few strings of wool to add some texture to it.

I finally got a moodboard that I liked after blowing one part of the big one up with the printer, which has different forms/lines that style compliment each other in my opinion.

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Fashion design/textiles - Colour board

I made my colour board mostly by looking at the colours Do Ho Suh uses in his sculptures and reusing it, drawing thing in those colours and separating them to have a good overview.

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Fashion design/textiles - Do-Ho Suh

Do Ho Suh is a Korean artist based in London, New York and Seoul. He works a lot around the idea of a home, what it means to people - is it a place, is it people, a building or a city?

His sculptures often are made with textiles (polyester/silk) and represent houses where he lived. He reconstructed, for example, his own childhood home - a traditional Korean house - in real size.

With this idea of home there is also the question of how people occupy the space, both public and private.

He also reproduced his flat from New York City by entirely covering it in paper and rubbing over it - Rubbing/loving, his project from 2012 to 2016 - with coloured pencil, which gave a sort of old drawing or even movie style.

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Fashion design/textiles brief

For the fashion elective we began by picking one artist from a list our tutors gave us, from which I chose Korean artist Do-Ho Suh. After picking an artist we then had to make both a colour and a moodboard in the first two weeks.

The weeks after we had to pick two textile techniques and make a series of swatches with them. I picked embroidery - Japonese embroidery, Sashiko, to be precise - and smocking.

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Movement Project Statement

For this project I explored movement through my travels, with painting, ceramics and fashion.

With my research I noticed that a lot of artists find inspiration through their travels, and I discovered artists like Anne Kelly, Cas Holmes, Leutton Postle, Wendy Kershaw and Jose Naranja.

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Artist research: Leutton Postle

Leutton Postle: Getting Ready - Meet Leutton Postle: The London Designing Duo Who Are Making Knitwear Seriously Cool (graziadaily.co.uk) When Giordana and I were looking for photos of runway designs we found this, which is made in a patchwork kind of style that reminded us of the drawings I'd made the previous week

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Artist research: Wendy Kershaw

Wendy Kershaw: About - Wendy Kershaw Ceramics (org.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com)

When I was doing my ceramic elective Elaine showed me this artist.

She's the one who inspired my travel diary, gave me the idea of making a book from clay/ceramic, and how I could paint it.

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Week 7: Movement Project

The different places of fabric are painted and finally stitched together. It looks a bit like a dress, but it doesn't have a back, if I'd had more time that's what I would have done.

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Week 7: Movement Project

These are pieces of fabric I cut in the forms I have in my sketchbook and that helped to design what I did the last weeks.

I used black wool to make the black sort of line, and stitched it on the fabric using the zigzag stitch on the sewing machine.

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Week 7: Movement Project

When all the pieces she stitched to the fabric I coloured them. To do that I used fabric paints that Giordana has and also my own acrylic paints. It's interesting that it isn't a nice and even coat of paint, that it's lighter in some places and darker on others.

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Week 7: Movement Project

On Monday I went to the fashion room again, and I made this kind of embroidery/sewing where I sewed the different pieces,that I'd cut out, on a big piece of fabric with different colours of embroidery thread I already had.

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Week 6: Movement Project

These are the fashion drawings I made on Tuesday, which I drew by looking at the collages I made Monday, and keeping in mind the colours that remind a bit of my travels (pinks and oranges because of the sunrise in Venice mostly)