Regeneration

Process of renewal, restoration, growth within genomes, cells, organisms and ecosystems

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final design drawings

for my final design drawings I did an arrange of drawings with different styles and forms some with colour and most without; I also played around with different versions of belts and other things such as accessories and the length of the skirts and sleeves and the size of the skirt and sleeves. I also thought about different colours I can do within the piece but I ended up sticking with the black and white drawings as I did not know what colour my fabric would Coe out when I naturally dyed it as well as I used spare fabric from old curtains and bedsheets I had I did not want to risk the amount of colour used.

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photoshoot 2

within this photoshoot I took my final piece home as there I had a mannequin that was my size and would fit my final piece, so I dressed the mannequin in my final piece, adjusted it a bit and then took it out in the wild; here I decided to photograph it against some of the autumnal colour and the ever green trees, I chose to do this because back in the medieval times there was not much towns, buildings and cities about but there was more trees and countryside's. I propped the arms up every now and then to show the full extend of some of the sleeves because you can not see the shape and forms of it when it is dangling straight down. i prefer this photo shoot to the other one because of the backgrounds and the colours it brings to the photo and it has also made the piece pop in several ways because of this although this one was not as fun as the other one I prefer this ones outcome.

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photoshoot one

for my first photoshoot I did, it was within the photography studio and as i did not have a mannequin that would fit my dress i decided to model it myself; within the studio i found a chair and a brush to use as props and to improvise and do some things around the studio to make it seam like the photos were taken naturally and was not that posed for. I did not highlight much within this photoshoot as when I do my next photoshoot I want to include some close ups of the details within the dress. I think that the dress did quite well in the end but did not tern out how I would liked it to but either way it did come out quite nicely.

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Final day of creating my fmp

 on the final day of making my final piece I decided to add beaded detailing all around the pieces where most of the seams are to add in more colour to the piece, I also sew the bodice and sleeves to the skirt halves as well as sewing the skirt together and hemming it; after that I realised that I did not hem the sleeves so I proceeded to hem the sleeves. after doing this I embroidered two flowers to the front to add some colour and some pattern the the piece, I also used several hundred beads to the piece that I had laying around as well as satin flowers but after looking at the piece all together it did not look right so I removed them from the piece which took some time as I didn't want to drop them and leave them all over the floor. 

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day 2 and 3 of final project

at the end of day 2 I pinned in the neck lining so as soon as day 3 started I could sew it in and hopefully overlock it which i got to do in the end as I managed to get an opportunity to use it between other people. during day 3 I added the neck lining in to the piece and then I got a hold of my teacher and got her to show me how to create sleeve patterns and how to flare them; as this was my first time doing it I learnt quite a lot and struggled a bit when it came to flaring out the sleeves as I had to make sure every little piece was evenly apart and symmetrical to the full flared bits of the sleeves would come out perfectly, I also sewed the sleeve together on that day so all I would have to do during the next week of creating the final piece was adding the sleeves onto the bodice I had created.

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final piece making days 1 & 2

to start off day 1 I got a bodice pattern and traced it and created my own as well as a neck lining for my piece, I then tried zero waste cutting the piece out of my dyed mushroom fabric as possible, and with what scraps I have I am keeping to possible try and make into something else if I have time, for my front bodice panels I have turned the darts into princess panels to change up the darts situation and show that I can do panels as well as darts. on the back piece i cut them as two separate  pieces so I can add in button allowance which i have done so you can get in and out of the piece however when getting into this piece assistance will probably be needed within it. doing the panels took up most of the day as I tried to make each pattern be as symmetrical, even and as similar as possible. when it came round to day two I sew the darts and the panels in so the pieces were now formed and ready to be sewn together, I then sew all of them together however I had done it wrong because I had sewn the pieces together without realising one of the pieces was the wrong way around so I had to go in and unpick it which took a while because I almost started unpicking one of the princess panels but I managed to stop myself then unpick the right seams, after that I double or well triple checked that the right sides were together and sew it correctly; I then displayed it on a mannequin to see how it came out like, then pinning on some buttons that I thought would suit the piece that I found laying around my house to see what they would look like ones I have put the buttons in.

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Sandy Powell

Sandy Powell is a British costume designer who has been nominated for academy award for best costume design 15 times, out of the 15 times nominated she has won 3 of them one for Shakespeares in love, another for the young Victoria and lastly for the aviator. above I have displayed a few of her pieces the one being the most noticeable is the cinderella one for the live action cinderella, for her cinderella costumes she has kept it to the traditional style of that time period or has tried to keep noticeable elements for back then. also shown above is some huge bell sleeves that I would like to transfer onto my piece and what I would like my sleeves to be like with the large hanging extra fabric in the shape of the bell; I also like how traditional or true to time that dress is. I would like to make the connection between this and my own project through the reason why my piece would be worn because it could be worn as a costume in certain circumstances under certain themes, for example it could be worn at halloween or a fancy dress party as a medieval dress or it could be used within a production of a play or a film.

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digital print

for my digital print I first started off with drawing digitally around some of my grown textiles as well as some observational drawings, after that i cut out pieces from my patchwork as well as from some of my boro that I had done within the past few weeks, I then edited some of the colours on them to make them the brightest they could be. I played around a lot with the different styles I could put them into but I did not really like how many of them turned out so I had to pick the ones I liked best and fiddle around a bit more with it. when it came to backgrounds I wanted a blue in colour one to set it aside from the other fabrics i will be using in mine. I struggled a lot when it came round to making the digital prints as I did not making the patterns and was unable to use most of the tools on illustrator as I would forget how to use them very easily as i did not find it interesting at all. this relates to the sustainability part of regeneration because it is a more sustainable way of producing print onto fabric compared to dying it with machinery or hand as it uses a lot less water when compare to that and there is little to none miss prints amongst the fabrics.

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Farrah Floyd

Farrah Floyd is a womenswear label, it combines quality materials with emotional design to create designs that can be cherished by the wearer; the label is anti-seasonal so there are no seasons the clothes are specifically dedicated for and every collection created is made using a zero waste pattern making system so there are no textile wastes from the pieces. the designer Farrah only uses sustainable materials that have been certified and happen to be produced in Europe Floyd has presented at several major industry events. some of these events conclude the green show room at berlin fashion week, the ethical fashion forum brand preview in London and the origin passion and beliefs at Milano Unica. 

Farrah's work links in with sustainability because of her eco friendly fabric as well as her zero waste pattern cutting; zero waste pattern cutting is a thing I would like to include in my final major project i also want to use Floyd's use of no seasons within my piece so it can be worn whenever and released whenever.

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Fast Fashion

fast fashion is the term used for clothing that is sold quickly and made cheaply to bring in as much income as possible, it is also known that the clothing is a one wear type wear you wear it once and then trash it, this is in fact one of the biggest reasons why the environment around us is dying slowly; the materials used to create these clothes are extremely wasteful from when it comes to the patterns being cut to when its in production; during the production of the clothes tonnes of water gets used from the dying processes to the washing of the fabric before making it into a garment. not only does most fast fashion end up in land fills but fast fashion also has an impact on the environment through carbon emissions, the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global c02 emissions each year according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

make/use: zero-waste fashion you can make yourself-

make/use is an open source system to help make zero-waste clothing, make/use provides toolsets that help gain users gain agency to making the on going use of the clothes that they wear or do not wear any more. on the make/use website they have said that every day 164 million square meters of textile waste is produced to the fact of inefficient pattern making; zero waste garments address this issue 100% through having little to none waste within their garments. not only the garment is zero waste but it can be modified and remodified a number of times to anyone's desires.

in my final piece I am hoping to use a zero-waste pattern cutting technique with in my piece so it can be modified into anyway as well as reducing textile waste and c02 commissions in the environment.

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Final piece research

for my final project i would like to do a medieval styled dress regenerated using hints of new modern pieces or modern made, i have chosen this because the style of the old bell sleeves and the long dresses with under skirts have made a comeback quite recently within many different communities such as the cottage core fans and the gay community, the purpose of my final piece is for somebody to either wear as every day casual wear or it could be used as a costume for a party or something along the lines of that; but nothing extravagant as it is a casual dress to be worn whenever to something casual.

History behind bell sleeves-

the bell sleeves were first ever put on a garment called a chasuble which was the dress of clergymen during the medieval times, but during in time the trend of this sleeve made its way from France over to England as do most trends but this one took off big time and made a big impact so that everyone was wearing bell sleeves. the originality of the bell sleeve actually started in 794 in japan but it was not until the 1500 that it took off until the western added personalisation and modifications towards it; since then the sleeve has come and gone with many more different alterations and occasionally going back to the original style.

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Fabric dye

to start off with my fabric dyes I went around my local areas foraging for natural dyes available, along this I found loads of elderberries on a elderflower tree where I plucked a load from, I then went hunting for some blackberries but came across some field mushrooms and grabbed a load of those, at first I did not think I could do anything with mushrooms but then I discovered a recipe to use to make mushroom dye; for extra precaution while picked both the elder berries and mushrooms I wore disposable gloves and had the elder berries in a bag and the mushrooms in a separate bag to that.. to create the mushroom dye I split the head from its stems, I then lightly cleaned the heads of all its dirt and chopped them into pieces or broke them into pieces, between this I submerged and boiled my fabric in water for 5 minutes after doing this I took it out and layered it between the mushrooms in a large stainless steal pot, I then proceeded to fill it up with water and boil it for an hour then turning it off and leaving it to sit for 24 hours, i then drained the water and rinsed the fabric of the mushroom pieces after the full 24 hours and left it to dry on a radiator. during the 24 hour period of the first lot of fabric soaking, I went outside once again and picked a load of sloe berries off of a farm with permission from the farmer, its quite early in the season for the sloe berries to be ready but surprisingly there was thousands all along the path, I wore gloves to stop myself from being pricked by the thorns on the bushes and tress and so that it would also be easier to grab the berries quicker with out any flinching. for my second lot of dying I used a similar technique on the sloe berries, I washed them and layered them between the fabric and pricked a few to give the fabric a head start, following the same boiling and leaving it for 24 hour process when I looked at it next and washed it through I thought I was going to get a nice purply colour but unfortunately it barely stained the fabric so I put it back into the pot filled it with water and elderberries and added some white vinegar to the mmix to see what would happen, I boiled it for an hour and left it , but as I was out when the 24 hours were up I ended up leaving it for 42 hours instead. when washing the fabric out now the water first came out as purple then went a blue ish colour, as i was washing out the fabric it was looking blue and purple however when i let it to dry out on the line it went this orange like colour with hints of pink and purple throughout it and i left it like that.

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weaving part 2

for my second weave I created these triangles within the piece by decreasing the strings or increasing the strings I weave between depending on which way I am going, I did this twice in my second piece and in my third piece I only made one triangle but I hot glued two circles in the piece as well to combine both the big triangle and the small circles to add more to the piece, on this big one I wanted to use as many different coloured wools in the piece with different textures, I struggled a bit when it came round to going around the circles once again as I had forgotten how I did it the first couple of times. after getting half way through my third weaved I took a break and decided to drape my first and second weave on the mannequin, I layered these and draped these in a number of different ways , the way I liked it best when draped was when it was like a very deep necked top. this relates to regeneration because it is the regeneration of an old technique which happens to also be sustainable because you can use all the scrap pieces of string and wool around to create it into a weave that has been chaotically made.

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Timo Rissanen

Timo Rissanen is a fashion and textiles researcher with an interest in the interconnection between sustainability and social justice as they relate to the contemporary fashion industry. his work shown above is his method of zero waste cutting where you only cut, sew and fold the pieces to create the garments, this is an important designer within my work because he uses a sustainable method of making garments that have zero textile waste and can be regenerated into a number of things and different styles using the same zero waste method.

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Zero waste pattern cutting

for the zero waste pattern cutting we got into groups of twos and threes then started cutting off the white edges and taping the pieces of paper together after that we looked through the instruction book to try and help us hint at where to cut first but we ended up cutting the paper in the wrong place but we corrected our mistake by taping it back together and slicing it in the right place; after doing so I folded the paper and taped it into the correct areas and popped the piece up so it would stand and so I could tuck the neck linings into the piece. we then did collectively as groups different styles of the zero waste cutting where it became whether the top was cropped, a different style of sleeves or a different neckline within the piece but keeping it so that none of it is wasting fabric. this links in with regeneration because it is a style of pattern cutting where it can be regenerated into many different styles and can be used in many different ways; its also quite sustainable as it does not waste any fabric which is a big issue within the fashion industry is all the textiles waste. after doing the zero waste examples we grouped together on our tables and created mind maps around the subject of regeneration with our ideas and other peoples ones as well as ones we found on the internet, this was done to help with our ideas around regeneration and to help us link our work to the subject of regeneration.

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First Weave

for my first weave I started by threading some wool around a piece of carboard that I had made slits into the top so it would grip the wool instead of letting it hang loose I then grabbed a long piece of wool and wrapped it around the carboard to start off my weave and after securing it in the back I got a hold of the same colour thread and started to weave in and out, up and down on the weave I had made using a pencil tom pus back the weaves I had just created to keep them all together; to switch the colour and thickness of wool when I  came to the end of the colour I was using id tie onto the end a new piece in whatever colour I wanted to use. I can relate weaving to my subject of regeneration because it is the regeneration of old techniques being used in the new modern era. after weaving for a bit I hot glued some circles onto some empty space I then proceeded to weave more into the piece and then eventually around the hot glued circles. in the end I believe my piece turned out really good and has a really interesting design to it.

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Reclaim to wear

“The concept of Reclaim To Wear was first introduced by From Somewhere, the pioneering upcycling fashion label started in 1997 by Orsola de Castro and Filippo Ricci, as a way to design beautiful clothes made entirely from discarded materials and remnants, such as second hand clothing, vintage, stock, designer surplus and production off-cuts.” this is a section describing where and how reclaim to wear uses clothes to create something new, each of their pieces use different methods to create a unique range of different but stylish looks. linking this to regeneration it is once again the regeneration of old garments into new garments which is a sustainable method for future clothing, if clothing was in this way more there would be less textile waste within the fashion industry making it a more sustainable thing.