COMME DES GARCONS

                                                                                                                                                                   
MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA

                                                                                                                                                                 

 

                                                                                                                                                              

JEAN CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC

                                                                                                                                                                     

YANG DU

                                                                                                                                                             

TIM RYAN

                                                                                                                                                                   

SASS AND BIDE                                              

   

                                                                                                                                                                    

MARK FAST

                                                                                                                                                                      

MEADHAM KIRCHOFF

                                                                                                                                                                     

TIMOTHY JAMES ANDREWS

                                                                                                                                                                  

DAVID KOMA

                                                                                                                                                                      

Reflective Statement

I think I have been quite engaged and committed throughout the rotations. I have been interested to see what each rotation has to offer and to learn what it kind of work I would be doing if I specialised in that area.  I have learnt which aspects of textiles I enjoy and which ones I don’t enjoy so much. I like stitch and print, and would like to specialise in Print Plus.  I have learnt that although Knit really interests me, I don’t think it would suit me to specialise in this area. I would like to learn more about weave, however specialising in it would be too much for me as it is a very technical area. I find print and stitch more experimental and I feel you can do anything you like in those areas.

 I found it hard to write my blog in an informal way. I found it hard to get a good balance between writing descriptively and writing my own opinions on the tasks and exhibitions. I think that I have communicated my ideas well and I think everything is quite clearly laid out. I also think I have used relevant photos to illustrate my points. I have used a mixture of photos I have taken and photos found on the internet. This is because some time I wasn’t allowed to take photos in the exhibitions, or the lighting didn’t let me take good photos. To improve my blog, I would have written short entries as I went along giving an update on how my work was going in the rotations, rather than doing it all in one entry at the end. I do think my blog shows that I was engaged and interested in the work I was doing.

Rotations

Print

For my first pop-up project, I was looking at objects which remind me of my Grandparents. I made collages based on my Grandfathers chess set and then used Photoshop to make it into a print. I changed the opacity and overlapped the images to create a layered effect. I changed the colours of some of the shapes to match other colours in my colour palette. There are things about my design which I would change. For example I wouldn’t overlap the images as much because there are sections where you can only see a small amount of the design underneath, which looks a bit messy. I would also make the top half of the design more like the bottom half as I think the very large scale chess pieces contrast well against the small ones. However, I like the colours I have used and I like the overall look of the design. I entered my design in the www.betafashion.com competition, and won. My design is currently on sale in Topshop, Oxford Circus.

The screen printing part of the rotation was interesting. I didn’t realise how complex the process of making the dye and devorè chemicals would be. I had done a lot of screen printing before, but not using the light box to expose an image on the screen. I really like experimenting with this, as it allows you to do much more detailed images than using a stencil. I need to work on getting the prints to look sharper with cleaner edges. Although I don’t think the rotation actually went as well as I had hoped, I do want to specialise in Print as I think with practise with how to use the screens my work will dramatically improve. I also much preferred the digital print to the screen printing.

Stitch

I think the stitch rotation went the best for me out of all of the rotations. I think this is because stitch is where I feel more confident as I have done much more stitch in the past than anything else. I really liked my outcomes and I think I used the technique that the tutor gave me well, as I took the basic idea and pushed it much further to create something which was my own and was unique.  I was working from drawings I had done of the box for the chess board. There were a lot of regimented squares in my drawings with the look of a grid.  I thought this would be a good thing to try to incorporate into my stitch work and the paint marks in drawings lent itself well to lots of different coloured threads.

Weave

I enjoyed weave a lot more than I thought I would. Testing out the different structures to see which patterns would be created was interesting. I like using unconventional materials to create the weave. I was basing my weave on drawings I had done of fattening foods such as doughnuts and McDonalds. Because of this, I used objects like straws and plastics. The sheen on these materials linked well to the sticky icing on the doughnuts and the grease in the McDonalds. I also tried using thicker, woollier threads to link to the fluffy texture of the doughnuts.

Knit

I found it hard to get used to the knitting machines, and it took a lot of perseverance to try to create some samples which I liked. There were a few techniques which I really liked and got to grips with, such as making circles and doing the lace holes and ladders. I found it slightly frustrating when I had ideas for things I wanted to try but which I think were too complicated for what I could actually do. Knitting is also something that I think I could like once I got more used to the knitting machine. However, I do think I improved a lot throughout the week. I created a punch card design based on my drawings of waffles. Similarly to the stitch rotation, I was using a lot of squares but this was slightly more abstract.  The sample I made which I thought was the most successful was when I combined a Lycra thread with quite a thick non-stretchy thread. One side of the sample was very loose with lots of hooped threads, while the other was tight with my punch card design knitted into it. I like the contrast between the two opposite effects which you can get by using the same technique.

Aware: Art Fashion Identity

Kimsooja
Mumbai: A Laundry Field 2007-2008
The way of life for these people in Mumbai seems so removed from our lives in Britain. Yet, it is not nearly as distant as you might think. 10's of thousands of Laudrymen make their living by cleaning the fabric which is then used for many items of clothing on our highstreets. The video makes us think about the journey that our clothes go on before they reach us, and force us to think about the impact our need for fast and cheap fashion has on the rest of the world.

Marina Abramovic
Imponderabilia, 1977
Marina Abramovic's piece looked to explore the idea of the taboo of nudity. Ambramovic and her partner Ulay stood naked in the entrance to a gallery in Bolegna. They stood the perfect distance from each other as to force visitors to squeeze between the pair, most people unable to avoid contact. The video then recorded the visitors reactions. Some were unfaised, or at least tried to appear that way. Some laughed nervously and some rushed through as quickly as they could. It put the visitors in a situation which would usually be very personal as the visitors are in the artists personal space and have forced physical contact with their naked bodies. Despite this, the whole situation is very impersonal, as the visitors enter one by one and then are quickly replaced with the next visitor to the gallery without any introduction to the artists.

Gillian wearing RA- sixty minute silence 1996- authority of clothing, dynamics, ranked pose,
This piece felt like a very strange phenononem, although it is a video, being able to sit and stare at people and have them all gazing back at you seamed odd.The Video shows you about each persons personalities.As the time goes on they all go from having a stern and professional front for the camera, to slowly they all start to relax and their true personalities start to show through. You can look at them and see, do they have silly nervous facial twitches? Do they look around to see what each other are doing?  Do they  look down at themselves? Are they bored? Frustrated? Tierd? Looking away to avoid eye contact with the camera?

Sharif Waked
Chic Point 2003
Fashion for ireali checkpoints made me feel uncomfortable. Pictures of men in awful life threatening situations are placed next to videos of light hearted/humerous fashion. I'm sure it was meant to be serious but it didn't seem that way to me. The fashion was interesting fashion though- suit jacket and shirt cut in half.

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes Exhibition

Serge Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872-1929), created the Ballets Russes in 1909. They stood out in Paris because of the amazing art noveuo inspired costumes combined with the unusual choreography. Their use of male dancers also made them stand out, as male dancers hadn't performed in dances of this style for more than two decades. Igor Stravinsky was the man behind the music. He was born in Russia, and there were clear influences of this in his Music.

The Ballets Russes managed to stay together through WW1, despite a lot of disruption, and then in the 1920s, they had to adjust to a changed economic circumstance. Their style adapted to fit modern interests such as beach culture, film and sport which is shown in costumes designed for them buy people such as Coco Chanel in 1924.

The British Museum

The British Museum

The British Museum was founded by King George II during the scientific enlightenment. The King was given so many gifts, most of which he didn't want in his house. As a place for storage and  to allow other people to admire the gifts, he created the British Museum.

The African art found its way to the British Museum around 1870. Britian had been trading with Benin since the 1600s, until in 1897 a quarrel over lead, led to Britian invading Benin. The Royal Palace was destroyed and all of it's contents were were taken to Europe. From then on, the African art was displayed in the British Museum. However the art was often displayed in a way to make it more 'primitive' looking. Artists such as Picasso were influenced heavily by African art but chose the pieces that were the most 'primitive' looking to work from. The idea of African art as being a 'Primitive' can be misleading. Often the pieces that were chosen to be exhibited could have been made 200 years before but could have been compared to work of the current artists, at the time in Europe.


In the British Museum the issue that the African art shouldn't be there because it should be returned to its, many would say, rightful owners, is skirted around. It seems as though they can't accept it. If they said it was stolen and so not rightfully theirs, there would be no option but to give it back.

The tree of Life.

 

The cold war was over, and there was peace and stability in Mozambique. However, there were still millions of guns left in the country. This meant that weapons were easily available to anyone who wanted them. To reduce this threat and to create a positive input into the country, Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane of the Christian council of Mozambique set up the Transforming Arms into tools project. This is where they took the left over weapons and exchanged them for farming equipment. With the collected weapons, some Mozambican artists made sculptures like the Tree of Life, as shown in the photo, to show the change in attitude towards violence in Mozambique.

The Tree of Life was my favourite piece in the collection at The British Museum.  You get a real sense of the feelings and the struggles in Mozambique and the video in the exhibition also helps to tell their story.

The Guns were a symbol of war and suffering. Now everything the guns represented, has been completely reversed to convey an opposite message, which is something so positive. 
It was important that this piece of art work was created, and seeing it in the British Museum shows how Mozambicans want to be seen and helps to spread this positive message that the artists wanted to portray.



Masquerades

It was also interesting to see the Masquerade Masks and costumes. Seeing articles from another culture is fascinating, and at first the whole idea of the Masquerade may seem alien to us. The more you read about it, however, the more you see similarities to our own religious practices in the UK.  Masquerades usually happen at the changes of the seasons and rites of passage, such as initiations and deaths. All times when Westerners hold celebrations or have national holidays. For example in the Christian religion, people celebrate Christmas in the winter and Easter in the Spring. Funerals and Baptisms are also examples of this.



V&A- East meets West

The Victoria and Albert Museum

East meets West

The lecture was a good introduction to the collection at the V&A. Learning about the context of the exhibition and what was happening in the textiles industry at the time the items were produced really helped to set the scene and helped me to understand the significance of the items.

I found that the collection illustrated well, the production of garments and fabrics world wide at the time, and by the end of seeing the collection I was surprised at my ability to be able to tell where the pieces where made and who they may have been made for.

What I found most fascinating was not seeing the most expensive and most sort after fabrics, but seeing how people in their desire to have the latest  trends in fashion or interior design, would recreate the trends themselves.  They used what ever materials they could afford and spent, maybe months recreating these fabrics to use in their homes. There was one piece of bedding which illustrated this very well. When a certain design was popular in China, the very wealthy in Britain could afford to buy these pieces. However in this example someone in Britain had recreated the bedding using affordable British thread which was a lot thicker than the fine thread used in the Chinese designs. The outcome was bedding with the same design as the expensive Chinese bedding but with a very different overall look. It was amazing to see how much work someone would put into something, just to have the latest trends. 

Another piece in the exhibition, which I found fascinating was a casket made by Martha Edlin. The intricatly  embroidered casket was mde from pearls, silk and metal threads. The reason I was so drawn to it was that Martha Edlin was just 11 years old when she made the Casket. Her needlework is incredibly skillful for someone of 11 years of age.

Pop-up2- Heavyweight

My new pop-up is based around the concept of weight. I've started by looking mainly at obesity and fattening foods. Ive been drawing fast-food and things like doughnuts and waffles, trying to portray the greasy, sickly qualities of the food by using materials which have this quality. I have been doing a lot of dipping pen and ink drawings combined with watercolour because when the ink drips and you draw in a loose way it suggests that the food has a sloppy texture.

Something that I thought might be good to use in my work were the little pots that you pump the ketchup into, in places like MacDonald's. They look quite simple, but when you deconstruct them you see that how they have been folded is quite interesting. Also you can stack them and slightly change each one to create different forms.

I have kept a MacDonald's Big Mac for weeks now, to draw and take photos of, and I am amazed at how it has managed to keep. The amount of chemicals the food is pumped with is quite apparent. When the food is cold and you actually look at the 'meat' properly, it makes your stomach curl. There are a lot of layers in the Big Mac which makes it good to draw. However there aren't many different colours to draw as there is a huge lack of salad.

However, I can't pretend that the doughnut looks at all disgusting. I liked the colours in the doughnuts, like the pastel pink.  I tried drawing the sprinkles in continuous line which made quite a nice pattern.

I have also tried drawing some weighing scales and i might start looking into obesity more. I'm enjoying this idea at the moment and it is easy to bring more objects into draw as they are very easily accessible and cheap.

Trash Fashion

Trash Fashion is an exhibition looking at ways to ‘design out waste’. In society nowadays, there is a heightened awareness of pollution and environmental issues. However, the textiles industry doesn’t accurately reflect this change in attitudes. There is a huge amount of waste in all stages of textile processes and 60% of textiles that are thrown away could be recycled or reused. Trash Fashion shows works of innovative designers who have come up with ways to try to combat the problems and make the textiles a much more ecological industry.

‘Knit to Fit’ is one approach shown in Trash Fashion. This new concept looks to dramatically change the way clothes are produced, by a new made to measure method using a 3D body scanner. The scanner creates a virtual image of the customer’s dimensions, in 6 seconds. The customer can choose the style, fit and colour they prefer before it is connected up to a computer knitting programme. The machine will then knit a perfect fitting garment. The garments are seamless which eliminates the wastage of material involved in the cutting process. The customer’s dimensions and preference can be saved on a card so that each time a customer goes into a shop to buy something, their stored information can be brought up straight away. Knit to fit, as the name suggests is only for knitted garments so I don’t know if it could completely take over the textiles industry. However I do think it is a clever idea, if it caught on as it would help make bespoke knitwear affordable.

                                         

Another equally as innovative idea is shown in the piece entitled ‘Bio-culture’. It shows how we don’t need to use harsh chemicals and non-degradable fabrics because we can grow our own using bacteria. The bacteria, which are actually microbes that ferment green tea, are left to grow in bathtubs and then the material is shaped, dried and cut down to size. The result is a garment that is completely bio-degradable and once it is worn out it will completely disappear if buried under the ground. Because the material absorbs water it can be quite heavy and gooey but the finished product looks very delicate and organic. It looks as though it might crumble if not treated with great care. However, it may not be as fragile as it appears. If this idea was to catch on and become used widely it would hugely reduce the amount of waste produced. However, I would guess that initially it would be a very costly to get this idea into production.

Keep Trim by Mark Liu was in my opinion, one of the best ideas. Unlike some of the other ideas, this one doesn’t seem to need to make any compromises. The bio-culture idea, although very clever, doesn’t look very wearable. Keep trim on the other hand, wouldn’t look out of place in any shop. Every inch of the fabric is used but yet it has a filigree appearance. The pattern is cut out of the fabric using the idea of a jigsaw. The pieces of the pattern fit together perfectly but are attached slightly misplaced so that they don’t fit together, and so give the filigree effect.

This idea cuts down on wastage in the making process, however once the garment is discarded there is still the problem of the fabric not being bio-degradable, unless it can be combined with one of the other ideas.

 This exhibition definitely shows that there is a lot of good work being done to make a change for the better. Although disrupting the way the textiles industry works may be costly at first, something needs to happen to change the way we waste so many resources and pollute the world. All the ideas shown in Trash Fashion are inspiring and an essential area of research and development.