Week 8

This week and over the weekend in preparation for the assessment on Thursday I needed to finish off my sketchbook, create my garment and do a photo shoot. So over the weekend I finished off my concept board, I then started designing, I came up with 5 designs that I felt represented my four key words. I then edited them in different ways on Photoshop, to see the variety of colours and styles I could have them in, I did this until I decided on my favourite one. So ready for Monday I began to finalise my final design so I could start creating the prototype. I made the prototype fairly easily as I just used the fitted dress block pattern which I did not need to adjust very much, only to lengthen the skirt in order for it to be below the knee. Also I did not need to create a prototype for my body piece as it was to be constructed in a similar way to my accessory. After this I then spent the next couple of days creating my garment. I chose to make the dress out of a silk organza because I looked at other fabrics and found that they did not have the same texture and aesthetic I wanted to create. The organza was coloured cream but as I wanted to make a dusty pink colour I soaked in wine, I did this after speaking to my tutor as she told me about the use of soaking the fabric in wine or herbal tea. I tried both techniques but found the wine worked better as the colour was stronger. SO when I had sewn the dress together I soaked it in wine for about 5 minutes then hung it up and let it to dry. I found the colour came out really well and it looked like my final design. I then started creating the body piece I found this to be the most time consuming part to the garment only because I needed to cut out 80 shapes and then fold them. For this I made my print which was similar to the print I used in accessory week which was taken from my photo shoot in week one, however I changed it by taking out the blue parts of it and having less green, as I wanted the main colour to be pink. First I printed this onto 3 A1 acetate sheets, but after cutting out the shapes and Realising that each sheet would give me around 12 shapes, I went and printed a further 3 sheets and found that I had enough for my garment. I ended up cutting out around 80 shapes all the same size apart from four which were smaller. After having all of the shapes I folded them into the right shape, stapling them to keep in place and then I started layering them up and attaching them together with staples as this was the most efficient method.

After finishing the body piece and having the dress soaked and dried I was ready for my photo shoot on Wednesday morning. I did the shoot at Ravensbourne as I just used a plain white background, I chose to keep the setting simple as the dress had different layers and textures in it. After doing my photo shoot which was straight forward to do, I started editing them. The editing phase lead down a way I didn't expect my photos to come out like as similar to my garment I added different layers on top of the photos, such as I overlaid a black and white layer and then a layer which was of the pattern I used for the body piece. I changed the opacity and colour burned the layers so the photos were visible but had a pink hue to them. I liked this effect as I felt it portrayed the theme of the project and gave them an interesting mood. However after this photo shoot I still had some ideas that I wanted to explore so I had organised to do another one on Friday morning, which although was after my assessment I may still use as they show the garment in a different way. However on Thursday in time for the assessment in the afternoon all of my work was complete, all I did was print off my photo shoot images, first onto glossy paper and then onto acetate to see what they came out like. I liked both copies even though they showed the photos in a different way.

In the afternoon I felt that the critiques went well and I got positive comments, however felt like I would've liked more constructive comments in order to allow me to prepare my work to the highest level for the final assessment, which I will prepare for next week.

Overall looking at the past couple of weeks I feel that I could have planned my time and used it more efficiently, as although I finished all of my work I would've liked it to be in a better quality for the assessment.

Week 7

This week I focussed on developing my work so I could start working towards my final product of the project in order to meet the deadline next week. The week started off quite slow for me because I felt stuck with the direction I wanted to take the project in, but after looking through my sketchbook, my ideas became clearer. But with my sketchbook I had quite a bit of work missing so throughout the week I worked to finishing off my work from the previous weeks whilst playing with ideas of what I wanted to create. When looking at my book I looked at my mood board and I went to one of the first pages which was a spider diagram that featured key words related to me that I had branched off of, I chose four words that related to me which were: Ruined, Trapped, Soft and Feminine. I then Created some fabric samples that I felt represented these emotions. I used different fabrics like silks, organza, PVC and cling film. Also after looking artists like Karla Black and Kyle Thompson and to reference my photo shoot in week one I smeared chalk onto the fabrics to see what affects I would get. After this I definitely knew that I want to use chalk in my final garment and I had decided upon a colour scheme which was to be pink because throughout the development of the whole project the two colours I have focussed on the most are dusty pink and a pale green and I felt that the dusty pink related to the feminine and soft aspect of my project.

Then after my sketchbook was up to date on the previous weeks work I started developing the work I had done, this included exploring my chosen words in more depth and trying to exaggerate the emotions. This then helped me to create a concept board that explored these ideas and summarised them.

Also this week, my group spent the day learning about creating a fashion film, I found this day to be interesting especially learning about how and why fashion films are created, we were also shown a few examples and then we needed to create our own concept and show this on a story board. I had made storyboards in the past and shot a music video which I found helped with this task, however the storyboards I had created were different to the one my group needed to make. I enjoyed making the storyboard and trying to show the concept through a series of stills.

Week 6

This week was my accessories week, I enjoyed this week more than I had anticipated as I found it really interesting as I was working with different shapes and where I could place them on the body.

 

The week started by me brining in an object that has meaning to me, this object was a bracelet. I wanted to present this object in different ways so I photocopied it, then changed the scale and colours and repeated it, I then looked at the bracelet in more detail so I focussed on one particular element which was a shell. I then reproduced this shape and made it 3-D, however because it was quite a boring shape I changed the scale of it enlarging it and shrinking it then overlapping these shapes onto one large image of it, which resulted in me having one 2-D large shape that was very different from my original shape, but as it was 2-D and I needed it to be a 3-D shape I folded it in different ways, so that this final shape was interesting to look at as it has different layers and each edge is different creating an interesting aesthetic.

Then to develop this I created smaller versions of my shape and then placed them onto to images of models that I found in some magazines. This helped me to see what my accessory might look like when worn on the body. When I did this I found myself placing the shapes mainly on the head and shoulders to work more as a body piece which I think I preferred doing, other than designing accessories like shoes, jewellery or handbags. But after creating four small designs I then developed these further into more designs which either had the shapes in different places or took a section of the shape and presented it in a different way. These designs then allowed me to progress into creating my final design and to actually make it. I made the body piece out of acetate as this a strong material and is also transparent , as my design used a see through material, I was also able to print onto the acetate, so I made a print which was taken from my photo shoot in order to link the project together by using the same colours and to create another interesting aspect.
 

I believe the final product to successful as I am pleased by it and I feel that the use of the acetate works well especially the parts with the print as they add another layer to it and make it look textured as well. Overall I learnt form this week that although I had never really thought that I would want to go into accessories I have found that I really enjoyed working this way, as I feel that nothing went wrong as I was working effectively and efficiently as I did not run out of time and was able to perfect the accessory, also after this week and having a presentation from my tutor I think that it is a possible pathway for me to explore further.

 

Week 5

This week consisted of learning to knit on machines instead of hand knitting, I had never used a machine to knit before and was looking forward to it. When we got started and were shown the different techniques that we could create I found that I picked it up fairly easily and was able to make quick but effective samples such as the honeycomb, polka dot and also how to hem the sample. I enjoyed using the machines although there were many elements to remember such as when casting on and making sure that all of the needles are threaded up, because if they weren't this resulted in having hole in the samples, fortunately this did not happen often   and I was able to avoid these issues. I think the sample I struggled on the most was probably the polka dot sample as I did this a couple of times and each time either the thread was loose or the sample had laddered. I think this was because I kept on forgetting to do particular things on the machine such as change the settings into hold, but then after realising my mistakes and checking with my tutor I was able to create a sample that had no issues.

I really liked the variety of samples that I created as they are all different and showcase different shapes and textures such as the bubble or pyramid shape as well as the tucking. As I liked the use of the tucking I wanted to start incorporating my own fabric into it which was not knit, I used quite thin fabrics as these would work best with the machine so I used long strips of chiffon and organza's, I feel that they created an interesting outcome as I didn't just use wool. I then moved on to using a stronger thicker fabric which was PVC, I really like the effect of this because I think that it is quite unusual and I believe that the mix of the soft wool and the hard PVC create an interesting aesthetic.  

 

I think that maybe if I was a bit slower on the machines such as checking I have the correct settings some of my samples would have come out better and would not have any loops in them, but the majority came out as I wanted them to, which I think is why I enjoyed the knit week as I was able to understand the machine and create samples that I liked, whereas before I did not believe that I would enjoy this week as much as I did, but I found that I really enjoyed working with the different textures and shapes that I could create easily.