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Floriental: Comme des Garcons / Nick Knight

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Dynamic Blooms

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Out of Ice - Elizabeth Ogilvie

Photography by Julian Abrams 

In January 2014 I had a chance to visit Out of Ice exhibition under the University of Westminster. The choice of the location for the exhibition was great. It was so different from other exhibitions that I’ve ever been. I couldn’t even believe that I’m actually going to see the exhibition. It was more like an abandoned warehouse rather than an exhibition and the gloomy, rainy weather made the location even more interesting and relevant. when I entered into the building, I could barely see anything because it was so dark. There was big screens, showing different  documentary films about importance of ice and the narrative about life of the ice but this wasn’t the interesting part of this exhibition for me. The best part was on downstairs. I could feel the strange mystery floating around the dark, cold room with the two large pool. Reflection of the projection of ice wall into the pool was fascinating. the second pool had two sculptural ice form slowly dripping and breaking the still surface, made me stay there for long time and just staring at the drops. what I really liked about this installation was the good use of different medias, the ambitious in the scale of the work and very interesting choice of location.

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This is how Japanese retailing in London

 London is where the latest fashion is on parade. Several distinct retail districts and elegant shopping streets, which are known throughout the world.

 Recently I have heard so many good things about Dover Street Market, which made me so excited to visit the shop for the first time. Unfortunately or fortunately, I’m always getting lost in between those little streets in London. finding the market wasn’t easy for me, small sign of the shop made me feel like I’m the one who’s discovering this little hidden gem for shopping. Shop design was just weird or better to say instantly creative, while I was there I saw some tourists just like as it was a museum.

 Everything under one roof, The multi-brand six-floor building has been designed to make you feel that you discover it every time. Amazing designer clothing, crazy jewelry and accessories all was there to make you spoilt for the choice, and such a little cute café in the last floor make you to spent even more time in the market.

 Every thing we wear is say something about who we are, maybe we kind of distracted by consumerism and not actually stopping and thinking about what we wearing and what it says about us. In Dover Street Market you can look for meaning in everything. A pairing Adrian Joffe, the store's owner and managing director of Comme des Garcons says, "There has to be something creative in the clothes, ideas or the presentation of the clothes. There needs to be a story behind it." If young designers have something to say then Dover Street Market will give them a platform, that’s the point of the market.

So many fashion labels are keen to be sold in Dover Street Market despite of the fact that they have their own shop because of the creativity to make their own space. Before Dover Street Market everyone remember it relevantly to small fine art galleries and now look everyone wants piece of it including Ms Beckham.

New Space (2015) Dover Street Market.Available at: www.doverstreetmarket.com (accessed: February 2015)

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Diversity of London

 Here is a little flash back to our first project, Rough Guide to London. London is a city that I love so much. My favorite thing to do in London is walking around without any goal in my mind and get lost in between these little streets. That’s when you find the coolest places.

 For this project we concentrated on five different locations (Shoreditch / Brick Lane / Spitalfields, Covent Garden / China Town / Soho, Notting Hill / Kensington, Brixton, The South Bank / Waterloo / Shad Thames). We have been divided in to 5 groups and each group had to come up with all the research on our three discovery days. The Idea of this project was to understand the richness and diversity of London.

 This project for me was all experimenting new thing. Although it’s been a year since I moved to London, I’ve never been in Brixton. OMG! It was so different and rough. City just showed me the other side of it. Before that in my eye London was been designed to look gorgeous, perfectly elegant and simply beautiful (LOL). Even though my head just fully focused on the negative side of the area, I saw colours, Flowers, colourful African fabrics and so many cafés and restaurants where each one, unique and different.

 Let’s back to our magazine, after researching and gathering all the information together in our personal A5 sketchbook, each group had a discussion with their tutor to choose the strongest page of each sketchbook. Finally, after decision, we photocopy our chosen page in the number of students. Because of the black and white photocopy we had to gave a little special touch to our page to make it more visually interesting.

 There was no better way to start a course. I feel super honoured to have one of these unique magazine. It just so inspiring and special to me.

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Reflecting statement

 It has been three months since I first started my blog. I have always needed to share my works and my passions. It all began when we were asked by the university to form a blog as an archive of our learning activities, as one of the teaching and learning methods. Here was that extra push to start my blog, and it wasn’t always the easiest thing to do.

 This term has been full of discoveries and I learned many new things. After each lecture my brain just functioned differently and when it comes to the blog task, I just had to ask myself too many questions and looking at things with different perspectives. Researching and analysing different subjects has really opened my eyes on a new world that goes even further than the virtual domain. Although I’m still far behind from the things that I want to achieve, doing each blog task has really lift me up. Now when investigating and examining a subject, my deeper and stronger commitment ability comes out.

  I’ve never tried writing for such a thing before and due to English being my second language, I found it quite hard to deal with. Now I feel like I have improved my English as well as my writing skills and I just want to share more and more!

 Management is a big part of the work and I have to say, I wasn’t that organize. It is my goal to become more systematize and working like crazy. It is simple, the harder you work the better is quality.

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Stitch Block

 Finally, it’s a time for last technical block. This term has been full of new experience, so much joy, so many things learned and a couple of mistakes. As it’s getting closer to final assessment, days are getting busier, so much stress, but also so much passion. I think stitch block was so different and interesting, re-inventing technics is what stitch is about for me.  Everything started from my drawings and because there was no right or wrong way to do things, I did some experimentation with different technics and tried to find some 3D shapes out, to reflects my drawings. Here is my final samples. :)

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Screen Print + Digital Print

After having two structured technical blocks it was a time for different experience, print. Screen printing process was very different to what I thought it would be, cutting stencils and layering them to get different shape with different color need a little patience. Because of the busy days in studio and crazy long process I had to keep my designs simple to complete 6 sample.

    For me, Digital Print is all about shape, colors and playfulness. Although I always enjoyed working with Photoshop,I've never used photoshop for designing. I felt doing the CAD collection was a perfect experience. It is always the perfect time to play around and get creative when it comes to drawing and photoshop is just another tool to push boundaries and exploring new ways of drawing and develop it toward designing.

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Wedding Dresses 1775-2014, V&A

I should say visiting Wedding dresses exhibition in V&A museum was such an unforgettable experience. It was quite a wonderful exhibition in terms of the amount of information to learn and also a great inspiration for me.

 This exhibition highlighted the history and development of the wedding dresses over the last two centuries. Details, details, details. In the exhibition there wasn’t just only information about fashion and development of wedding dresses but also many exciting details about the lives of the wearers. They showed around 70 wedding outfits including the dress for woman from rural communities who married to the farmer to the outfit worn by Dita Von Teese for her marriage to Marilyn Manson, which was simply stunning. Compare to the other fashion exhibitions and their struggle to remove the personality from the pieces, the one of goals in this exhibition was to allow a glimpse into the lives of the wearers. 

 Said reasons were not the only cause of my excitement for this exhibition but it was the individuality which definitely felt in the area (especially second floor). ‘AN INDEPENDENT BRIDE’ was an eye catching title which was given to a red dress standing out among white dresses in the showcase. It was interesting for me to observe the dresses of the women who wanted to express their individuality through their clothes and not just for fashionable appearance.

 Actually I’ve been asked to write about what have been missed and what was the lacking in terms of ideas or approaches, but this exhibition was just much more than all important white dresses which left me speechless during most time of the visit!

 Explore a Pinterest board of wedding dresses from the V&A collections:

http://www.pinterest.com/vamuseum/wedding-dresses-savethedate/

Anon, 2014. Wedding Dresses at the V&A-in pictures. The Guardian Available at: www.theguardian.com.

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Collecting the exotic

 My video chosen for this task is Katy Perry Performance at American Music Awards 2013 when she was accused of being racist after dressing as a Geisha. For this occasion, she made her own reinterpretation of the perfect modern yet traditional Japanese look. The low cut bodice and side slits to show her legs. The culture stereotype can be seen in dancers as she surrounded by people in kimonos dancing around her holding rice paper fans and umbrellas and the set design as well.

 Katy Perry tried to wear something completely different from head to toe also instead of going with her personal make-up and hair style she appeared in Japanese make-up and hair style to look like someone from different culture, which she doesn’t belong to, east. She stole Japanese culture for her own use as an accessory and showed Japanese culture as being the object and not the subject. Although some people don’t see the problem in her video and they thought it is pretty and fun, this video is not harmless. These image of the orient are problematic because they are turning cultures into products, and frequently they disrespectfully changed the traditional culture.

 Stereotype have always played a role in fashion. This blog task made me think about how designers have a heavy duty not to offend people when they get inspirations from other cultures.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iXqcjgX-I9E

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Weave Block

My second Technical block was weave, For me each technical block was a new beginning and a new challenge. Personally, I felt less freedom in weave. It was all about pattern and different type of yarn, I love researching and finding out about different type of yarn because it can make a huge difference on final work but those pattern papers just drive me nuts, So I tried to get to know how does loom work. At the beginning nothing seems right but I didn’t give up and I kept trying without worrying that much about it and you know what it’s really worth it!

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Knit Block

Today, I would like to share part of my samples which I’ve done for my knit block. I waited a little while before revealing because I didn’t felt that they are strong enough to be shared. Looking back at these images of my work which I’ve done in October made me see certain things with a different point of view. It seems like time flies so quickly and I definitely need to keep a record of my work.

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Fashion and Print

 I was out in town, looking for a street style with interesting print and patterns to get inspired for my print block, but I found it super tricky when people wrapped up to deal with this freezing weather. So I’ve decided to check one of the trendies place in London, Bond Street! Where the designer fashion stores are gathered together. I had a delightful walk, looking at designer collection of print. 

 I have to say, it was really inspiring to see each designer has its own specific aesthetic and techniques, one paid more attention to different shades of color, while another considered floral pattern, to name a few. Among all the different high fashion designer shops, Moschino stood out for me. Using coca cola logo will effectively poke a fun at the customer. I noticed that  these obvious fun print is what have been missed in our prints. It’s the time to take a little break from our abstracts designs and have some fun!

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The pathology of collecting

Among the various meanings of the French world object, the Littre dictionary indicates that anything which is the cause or subject of passion, figuratively and most typically is the loved object, Jean Baudrillard’s “The System of Collecting”.

Janet Esteves passion for Mickey Mouse with the world’s largest Mickey Mouse collection is really good illustration of this quote. To her, Mickey Mouse is such a lovable creature which such enthusiasts will insist that they are ‘crazy about this object’.

 Esteves says “I just want to have as many mickeys and many Mickeys and many Mickeys!” which brings me to another sentence in Baudrillard’s “The System of Collecting”, ‘Once the object stops being defined by its function, its meaning is entirely up to the subject. The result is that all object in connection become equivalent, thanks to that process of passionate abstraction we call possession. Further, a single object can never be enough.’

Through my researches and observations, I found the way which they are organizing their collection quite interesting. The following video depicts that she dedicated a particular room for her grandchildren to play with mickeys, although in the Mickey room the can just look!

  (Baudrillard, J., 1994.The System of Collecting J. Elsner & R.Cardinal, eds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxPcvHwrFDQ

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WAR IN THE MUSEUM

   My focus was the holocaust exhibition in the 3rd floor of the Imperial war museum. This exhibition illustrates the atmosphere in Europe before and after the order of the Nazi sought to destroy all the Jews. Exhibition was designed to give you a sense of the horrors that went on. What attracted me  the most about this exhibition was the different form of media, which have been used to make this feeling in visitors such as interviewing with witnesses, real movies, pictures, objects and even models (like Auschwitz concentration camp).

 Even though nothing can transfer this unspeakable horror of the Holocaust, museum tried their very best to induce the emotion of this highly sensitive subject. I have never seen a holocaust exhibition before and to be honest I didn’t have enough information about it as well. Therefore, I was glad that the museum tried to tell the story from the beginning in the influent way. In the first room of the exhibition, there was a sign read about what holocaust is, followed by the second room, there was a movie about who are the Jews and why Hitler commanded to destroy and discriminate all of them. These two parts of the exhibition gave me a complete perspective of the holocaust.

 There was just so much emotion to take in every corner of this exhibition. The most significant part of the exhibition was the picture of the Jews before their execution and the display of the last objects they had a hold onto, with the sign read indicating:

 'Attention! All clothing to be deposited, all items of your possession, except for money, valuables, documents and shoes, must be left at the disrobing point. Money, valuables and documents must remain in their owners possession until handed over at counter. Shoes to be tired in pairs and handed in where indicated. When completely undressed, enter together to bath and inhalation”.

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The Curve, Barbican

 This autumn, the Barbican has commissioned Walead Beshty to create a new work for the Curve, I visited this exhibition while I was working on my box clever project, developing a drawing toward design of technical blocks. More than 12,000 cyanotypes prints of objects from his studio were placed throughout the gallery from floor to ceiling (90m). 

“I just love the object. I feel a little bit like an object fetishist for enjoying it so much.” Walead Beshty. 

Before this exhibition I had never heard of cyanotypes printing. Each print was made by coating a porous surface, with UV-sensitive cyanotype chemistry. Then the object was placed on top, and print was exposed directly to sunlight, producing the silhouette against a cyan blue background. I found the outcome of this technique quite similar to drawing with bleach on ink but the interesting thing about this technique method was that the surface he used were matters such as, any discarded paper and wood base materials in his studio as a surface to print which gave the work texture and its helped the work to describe its own theme. His works has have really inspired me to experiment more, using different medias my work to develop my drawings.

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Disobedient Objects, V&A

 I have just been to the disobedient Objects exhibition at the V&A in London. Disobedient objects is an exhibition of art and design made as part of social movement by people to make a change in the world. As a textile student it was nice to see so many objects in the show related to fashion and textile.

One piece in particular that caught my eye was where are our children?' the textile shows a weeping mother, chained hands, falling doves and the penetrating eyes of the secret police. A note found tucked into the tiny pocket on the back of arpillera shares the anguish of mothers whose loved ones have been taken away by the military.

    What are you wearing?                        

                                                        This makeshift T-shirt is constructed from rice bags which was worn by a korean farmer demonstrating at the sixth ministerial reminded me of last month Chanel catwalk, as after the show the models completed the final walkthrough shouting feminist chants and carrying posters with feminist messages such as “history is her history”, “ladies first” and “women’s rights are alright” and it's made me think of how social movements can influence fashion!