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sense-of-place-eca · 8 years ago

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7th & 8th March

7th

Ruby and I met to discuss some of the research we’d found for the Pinterest board. We decided to look more closely at the ‘Wordhood’ trend informing our project, on WGSN.

This allowed us to pick out the elements we both found inspiring:

SHAPE-

Exaggerated, over sized, obscure silhouettes taken from architecture, American work-wear inspired, gender neutral

TEXTILES-

Nostalgic & timeworn look that comes from distressed materials. We thought this could be a focus of our textile exploration. It goes along with a rip and repair element in the grunge theme including- loose stitching, fraying, bleaching, using concrete and other man-made materials along with textiles to test their nature.

We also found some weave inspiration among our denim research. It gave us the ideas of combining different materials (heavy/ lightweight, hard-wearing/soft) to get unique weave samples. This links to how we have combined our work and the geometric lines with the loose, hand drawn. We can use weave to create structured pieces of fabric relating to architecture research.

With some loosely weaved fabrics we began to experiment with ways in which they can be changed by pulling them in several ways.

We want to use both hand and machine stitch areas in our garments. Ruby’s sample from Part 1 featured seams and straight stitching, and mine contained a lot of free machining with areas of simple hand-stitched lines on top. Combining these contrasting methods of embroidery will allow our themes to merge effectively.

The use of photographs and layering pattern is another key theme we both wish to explore. The backgrounds of initial samples were quite graphic- coming from photographed images rather than drawing. Though as we both had hand-drawn line in our development we thought that layering both in different mediums (screen print, sublimation, stitch, manipulation) would be a good way to combine the styles.

Our research also lead us on to imagery and designer inspiration from a variety of sources:

Lavin, Marques Almeida, Marni, Faustine Steinmetz, Another mag, Demi Anne,Phoebe English, Regen. Urban landscapes, Mill Junction, Antoine Predock, distorted line.

We purchased some materials to begin creating samples- specifically denim and work-wear inspired.

From our research we were able to begin combining images in order to create the ‘Mood’ of our collection.

We received an email with our partner in Shanghai, Zoe’s work. This helped to inform our research.

Her focus is on a film: Chungking Express.

The Hong Kong city setting in the film is really interesting and works well with our distinctly urban theme. We loved the imagery she has chosen and her clever form of layout, using collaged pieces of text and graphic illustration over film stills.

Overall we feel Zoe’s work has the bold, grunge aesthetic we want our designs to speak. Street wear, blue-collar work wear and youth subcultures have informed our fashion research and combining these vibes could be effective.

The beginning of weave development was shown also. As well as this, much of the imagery she has used from the film is blurred- we mentioned wanting to include distorted images in our designs. These similarities are exciting as we feel there’s great potential in the combination of our ideas.

8th

Today we had the Skype call with our tutor and got to speak to Zoe and show her what we had worked on yesterday.

She spoke more about her interest in weaving, in particular with electrical wire and cables. Her work uses a lot of colour which at the moment, contrasts to ours which focuses more on the neutral elements of our palette with sparing flashes of colour. Her ideas are interesting and we both like the idea of having no gender market in mind.

We showed her a materials mood board we created and she seemed to like our idea of using denim and the techniques we want to explore.

I think we are on the same wavelength as Zoe, and keeping up to date with each others development will allow our designs to compliment one another well.

Later, I began fraying a sample piece of denim with a teasel brush to see the effect. Although time consuming it was really effective in distressing the fabric, creating loose threads, frayed edges and come subtle rips.

Ruby began to create a timeline for us to work to, ensuring we are organised and can keep up with our deadline for hand-in.

We will move on to experiment further with distressing materials on Friday, creating samples of the different techniques that interest us as features in the garments.

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