SARAHG: 2014

Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Culture Project

For my two cultures I chose Victorian Britain and Modern Japan. I chose them because they have very distinct similarities and differences. I noticed that Victorian British clothing and design was very ornate and decorative, whereas in modern Japan it is very streamlined and functional. I also noticed that a lot of contemporary Japanese street fashion like the 'Gothic Lolita' look is inspired by Victorian British style with its heavy petticoats, delicate lace and voluminous sleeves.

As a staring pint, I looked a Victorian dresses, sketched the details and explored how I could translate them into more contemporary designs.

I then looked at the more simplistic silhouettes of the type of kimonos worn by women in modern day japan and created some designs using them as inspiration.

I then decorated these designs with contrasting Victorian detailing such as ruffles, lace and puffy sleeves. As research, I visited the V&A and was particularly inspired by their ceramic section. The act of afternoon tea was and important part of the culture of Victorian Britain and is also a tradition in Japan, so I focused on the tea-cups of each culture. I made sketches and the developed them into prints and embroidery details to use on my designs. I was also inspired by the floral patterns Victorian teacups to use a soft, pastel colour scheme.

I thought that these designs were a bit too voluminous, almost drowning for my liking, therefore I used them as the basis to develop a collection of separates.

Sportswear

As a starting point for this project, I went to research sportswear in shops on Oxford Street such as Nike Town, Adidas and Selfridges. The objective of this was to understand details, prints and colours are important when designing sportswear, which tends to fit very basic streamlined designs, in order to make it appealing and interesting.

These are some of the photos which I took during my research trip:

I was then told that I had to focus on a particular sport. I chose running as my sport because it is the sport that interests me the most and there has been are recent influx in high-tech running gear which really excites me. I was inspired by how high-tech sportswear is very 'trendy', almost to the point where 'hipsters' have started wearing it as a fashion statement, for example wearing sports bras and running leggings to night clubs and on the street. I then decided to design a collection to appeal to this target audience, that could be worn for leisure and exercise.

This is my concept board that I created inspired by this idea. A lot of the images came from Tumblr as sportswear is a big 'Tumblr trend' at the moment.

I also had to choose a London landmark to use as inspiration. I chose the skate park at the Southbank as it is covered in interesting graffiti which I could use as a print. I was inspired by the rough, graphic, colourful sportswear prints used in the 1980's, and made some of my own versions using oil pastels, referring to photos that I found and took of graffiti at the south bank.

To start designing my collection, I extracted details from my research to use as inspiration.
I experimented with placing them on the stand too and playing with the scale and placement of the details. While I was designing, I kept in mind that I wanted to create something sporty and streamlined but still stylish and wearable.

One of the tutors noticed that there was an element so sexiness to my mood board, almost fetishising sportswear, as to many people, being athletic is a big turn on. I decided to play on this by adding mesh to make my designs revealing in a subtle way.

In terms of colour scheme, I will place my prints on a plain white and black backgrounds for the basis of the prints to make the bold colours stand out, and I will add neon colours to the details to accentuate them. I want my collection to able to be worn at both a rave and the gym!

This is my final illustration without colour. I add in the print and colour on photoshop as soon as I can!

Deconstruct/Reconstruct

I made two pieces for my Deconstruct/Reconstruct project; a draped piece made from a structured blazer and a knitted jumper and a two-piece outfit of a skirt and a top made from a denim jacket.

With the first piece I wanted to take the blazer which was very structured and turn in into something very loose and unstructured. I turned it inside out and draped it loosely across the stand. To create extra volume and an contrast in textures, I added panels of a cut up-knitted jumper. I kept an extra sleeve from the jumper, as I thought it would be very interesting to have a 3 sleeved garment. I also added a sheer piece of fabric with a zip for decoration and a further contrast in textures which came from a deconstructed top. I was inspired by Comme des Garcons and Bodymap who make very unusually structured clothes, particularly innovative knitwear.

As this garment was very loose, draped and unstructured, I decided to also challenge myself creating a more structured, tailored piece. I cut up an old denim jacket and used the panels to create a pencil skirt and strappy top. As denim is quite overdone, to make my designs more interesting i focused on giving my pieces interesting shapes and unique details such as flaring on the hips, draping on the top and criss-cross straps. This way inspired by the way J.W Anderson uses very simple materials to create interesting, innovative shapes.

I also noticed that the aesthetic reminded my of the early 2000's, when 'double denim' and denim outfits were a big trend, which a lot of celebrities were famously (or infamously) spotted sporting).

3 Words

For my three words project I chose Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of the book Prozac Nation as my 'muse'. Prozac Nation is an autobiography about Wurtuzel's struggles with depression and anxiety in her teens and early twenties, during the late 80's and early 90's when Prozac was just being introduced as an antidepressant. I found the book very inspiring as despite her struggles, Wurtzel still manged to complete her English degree at Harvard University and become an accomplished writer.

I have also struggled a lot emotionally during my adolescence and coincidentally just before this project started, I was prescribed Prozac. At the time, I felt like I could really relate to this book and it provided reassurance that I wasn't the only person who struggled with their emotions in this way.

I also watched the film adaption of the book Prozac Nation (2001) which starred Christina Ricci as Wurtel. I paid attention to the type of clothing that Wurtzel wore in the film, she seemed to have quite a dark, gothic, grungy style and mostly wore baggy, jumpers, jeans and black turtle necks, as if she wanted to hide her body from the world, so I decided to use this as a concept.

The other two words I chose were 'drape'; which I thought would work well with the grungy style, and 'miss-match' which relates to the confused state of mind and emotional highs and lows which Wurtzel experienced.

As a starting point I produced mood boards, these are some of them:

As a next step, I developed some basic structures on the stand, using my 3 words as initial inspiration, I also made quick sketches as I went along to record the shapes and silhouettes to use as the basis for designs.

“The moment in The Bell Jar when Esther Greenwood realises after thirty days in the same black turtleneck that she never wants to wash her hair again, that the repeated necessity of the act is too much trouble, that she wants to do it once and be done with it, seems like the book's true epiphany. You know you've completely descended into madness when the matter of shampoo has ascended into philosophical heights.”

This quote from the book inspired me to base my designs on a black turtle neck. Wurtzel also repeatedly describes depression as "dark black wave" therefore I used lots of draped folds to black fabric in my designs to symbolise this.

I found an pattern made up of grey smiley faces, and decided to print this onto fabric and incorporate into designs. I thought the concept of grey smiley faces work really well with my theme, as smiley faces are a symbol of happiness and grey is a very depressing colour, which represents faking happiness, putting on a brave face and the effoects of Prozac as a 'fake' happiness. The smiley face is also a symbol of Acid House drug culture, which fits in with themes of heavy partying and drug use the book.

I decided that I was defiantly going to base my design on a black turtleneck jumper, so I bought one from a charity shop, as unfortunately I didn't have time to knit my own. I decided to use black velvet, black cotton jersey, my smiley face print and tartan (Wurtzel wore a lot of tartan in the film and it fits into the era of 90's grunge) as my fabrics. With these I did lots of stand experimentation and sketches.

As I was short of time, and my sewing/pattern cutting skills are not very advanced, I decided to create a dress which was a rough impression of one of my designs.