For the start of this final major project I have been mainly making amends to the last project as I recently found that there were a few mistakes and some things were missing, but outside of college I was planning on my final major project and trying to establish a theme that would be appropriate for what Iâm passionate about. I really wanted to take this freedom in the final project to express myself with what i like and work on the visuals that i think look the best and most unqiue. I then went on and made my plan for my Statement of Intent and began to write up my first draft.
In these last 2 weeks I have learnt about multiple new artists and how to construct a SOI. Also, I have decided on basing my final project on the theme of âReclaimed Clothingâ, looking deeply into how elements of past styles and movements are borrowed from and interpreted by subsequent youth movements, and what makes clothing authentic or original. To help adapt my ideas, I also created a mood board of high end clothes and accessories with brands that I enjoy alongside.
This week I have mainly focused on finishing my SOI and researching specific artists. Midway through my week I started to respond to Martin Margiela by using the facilities at college and painting with acrylic paint. Â I wanted to base my design on the logo of my brand, which is just an abstract âFâ, and I began by painting the shape of the F with white acrylic paint onto black fabric, then using red paint to add a blood-like overlay to the design as I decided this would be a successful way of conveying visuals of old and newâ. Whilst looking at his work I discovered that he obviously has an interest in ensuring that his garments express visuals of authenticity, by incorporating techniques that expose the flaws of the clothing. This is something I have achieved within my response and want to take forward when producing my finals.
This week I conducted some in-depth targeted research on selected historical and contemporary fashion artists/designers and graphic designs to expose their techniques and intertwine them within my own work by extracting the most successful and relevant aspects and experimenting with them to establish the best visuals for my final(s).
In response to my research I found on Demna Gvasalia an old sweater in my wardrobe which was oversized, and an old âUmbroâ hoodie, which had embroidered stripes down each arm. From looking at the result I feel like this experimentation has been successful as it has shown me that combining these two selected visuals can create a piece of âreclaimedâ garment that appeals to the correct audience, which in this cause is either âstreet fashionâ or âhigh-end runway fashionâ. And from this I am going to continue to distress my garments and leave some oversized to fit my theme of âreclaimedâ by bringing back theme two trends.
This week I took a step back from developments and decided to do some extra targeted research
I wanted to conduct some research on what recent events/trends involve âreclaimedâ or âreworkedâ clothing to give me an insight on todays version of reclaimed clothing, to discover what aspects of historical fashion they have recycled and why it appeals to their selected audiences. I went to these three places and added them to my bibliography.
ASOS RECLAIMED VINTAGE ONLINE STORE
URBAN OUTFITTERS URBAN RENEWAL
Now that I have conducted some relevant, in-depth research on my theme subject of âReclaimed Clothingâ, I felt it was time to incorporate the techniques, processes & inspiration I gained within some of my own creations. I aimed to experiment with embroidery, printing techniques, imagery and visuals to see which aspects I should include in my final(s) as I want them to convey the correct visuals clearly with anything clashing. On reflection, by creating each one in the way I did, I feel like I was successful in choosing the correct visuals for each one and this has shown me a various amount of things when it comes to deciding on which imagery, colour and materials to include within my final and what fashion group I want It to appeal to.
Additionally, I went out with a friend of mine and we borrowed a DSLR from college to take some pictures at an abandoned building, as I felt this was the right scene to shoot at because the aspects of debris and chaos will fit well with youth/street theme. We captured many angles and different lighting whilst there and covered all the designs on the hoodie and jacket, we also took some pictures of the building to allow the audience to see the scene of the shoot, and to make the audience more aware of the theme. I then arranged the images and added a vhs overlay so that they had the visuals of a âLookbookâ, (which is a short visual book brands release early as a teaser for their audience) and so that they match the scene of the shoot as it looks old an run down, just like a vhs. I feel like our images match that perfectly and now know what aspects I need to incorporate within my final to appeal to the correct audience and to convey the correct message/theme, So this has been some successful experimentation and I will now move onto creating my final and deciding on what to include.
As I felt like I didnât have enough research to back up what Iâm trying to achieve with m finals I opted to do some extra research on Historic Asian Art and the high end brand Gucci. Before starting on my finals I wanted to conduct some in-depth historical research, on a form of ancient art that has been reclaimed in modern fashion so that I could gain inspiration and extract aspects that I could intertwine with my finals. And I found that The most used animals are snakes and dragons as theyâre believed to bring luck, and these are the two that I want to incorporate within my finals as the inspiration gained from the ancient Asian art that I researched has had a huge impact and shaped todays high-end fashion, as the brand âGucciâ has recently brought to light.
Now that Iâve finally conducted enough relevant in-depth historical and contemporary research and responded to it, this has aided me in establishing my ideas for the final(s), as well as giving me an insight of what I can achieve, allowing me to look back and extract the most successful techniques/processes to incorporate within my finals. Looking back on my creations, I feel like I rushed the sewing too much and this causes the outcomes to look unprofessional, but then I thought that this links in with the authenticity of âReclaimingâ clothes, and the rawness behind the beauty in a sense, as it shows the progress through loose threads etc. Overall, I am happy with the outcome and will now continue to see if there are any other possible outcomes before displaying my finalsWEEK 11So far this week Iâve written my Artist statement and Iâve been displaying any work I need to. Thereâs still a few things I need to add to my folder but the main thing I need to finish is my evaluation. After successfully completing my finals I am extremely happy with how they turned out and how Iâve managed to use skills that I wasnât familiar originally familiar with and created a piece that am I am very pleased with