Throughout the Fashion Skills and Processes project I have completed a body of work surrounding the theme of everyday moments. I have interpreted this theme in the direction of my own everyday life and based the sub theme around gender and sexuality. Through this project I wanted to visually communicate my own sexuality and gender, as it’s a perfect opportunity to express myself when I find it difficult to do in normal life. My goal with this project was to create work that can help others who are also confused about their identity.
My research in this project has consisted firstly of creating visual collages where I first developed a vague perception of the dominant colours and the primary source images I wanted to use. Developing on this, I conducted primary source research into artist who have inspired me and my textile samples. I studies designers such as Matty Bovan, Andy Warhol and Dilara Findikoglk. Studying artist such as these has given me the inspiration and confidence to portray similar themes that are both personal to me and the artist themselves. For example, Matty Bovan using striking colours and patterns to create an androgynous look, as I consider my persona to exist with androgynous so Bovan is a great motivation towards creating work that portrays this. As well as studying designer, I wanted to understand some creative minds in other industries who defy the rules of gender and sexuality. This has given me a greater understanding of perceptions of gender within multiple industries. Overall, I am pleased the quality and quantity of my research as I have found information from multiple sources such as through websites and books, where I have compared research to get a full understanding of the artists from different points of view.
Through this project I have learnt many practical skills, such as in embroidery, weave and printing. Firstly, considering I haven’t sewn previously to this project, I have improved greatly. I have learnt how to use a Bernini machine to create embroidery samples such as pleats, pin pucks, appliques, reverse appliques as well as free machine embroidery. Within this I have found success, after considerable attempts I managed to improve greatly. However, while taking a longer time to learn the basics, I didn’t experiment to my full potential. I wish I used a larger variety of materials and untraditional methods to create my samples. To overcome this in the future, I am going to exaggerate certain aspects of my work and use materials that are out of the box. Secondly, within print I have really enjoyed creating samples in both screen and digital print, where my samples have worked well and show a great level and skill. I have learnt the processes of how to make and use disperse, Procyon and pigment dyes. However, to develop my knowledge I wish created my samples using puff, not only to add diversity to my work, but to also gain the experience. Within weave and Knit I found the process repetitive but rewarding as I loved the quality of my outcomes, especially in weave. In knit, my samples show less skill as I found it hard to understand the process due to its complexity. If I had more time, I would return to knit to improve the quality of my samples.
Within this project, I have had experimental success. For example, in embroidery I have used untraditional materials such as bike tryers and thick rope to create some of my samples, however to take these further, I need to combine samples from other areas such as print to understand if combining them is successful. However, I want to experiment more within weave, where I add alternative materials aside from yarn. Overall, considering I haven’t completed work like this before, I believe I have experimented to a great extent, where my outcomes are both visually and texturally exciting.
I feel to progress in this project I have planned my work to make sure I’m visually displaying my narrative. While completing work I have researched artists that have influenced my work. For example, I have studied an artist called Dilara Findikoglk whose work has a clear colour palette this inspired me to do the same as I loved the uniqueness and eye-catching side to her designs. After studying this artist, I worked alongside a colour palette right through to my outcome, this allowed me to create work that visually fitted together making it a more developed and fine-tuned body of work, like that of Findikoglk. Moreover, to achieve the sense of androgyny in my work, such as what is seen in Matty Bovan work, I looked at colour theory in terms of gender. I decided to use the stereotypical colours of blue and pink to represent the male and female personas, but by combining them I am visually communicating the mixture of gender characteristics to form that androgynous character. In terms of my skills, I have developed greatly improved. Before this project, I have never sewn or used a machine, and when I compare my first sample in embroidery to the embroidery aspects of my outcome, I believe my control has improved, giving my outcomes a more refined and neat appearance. I have worked consistently to achieve improvement within embroidery, where my failures have been recognised as learning opportunities to improve.
Other than this, I have encountered many problems in this project, which I have tried to overcome. For example, I have found it difficult to portray my experiences in written word, if that’s in my reflective blog or my annotations. However, to overcome this I have looked at previous blog examples to understand how to structure my posts, to make sure I’m correctly portraying my narrative and opinion. Alongside this I have found guidance with my peers who find the blog a more approachable task.
I believe my knowledge and skills have improved in the time of this project. My practical skills across all areas of this project have developed in terms of the success of my samples. I have become more aware of the areas within fashion and textiles, which is exciting as I enter further into the foundation year. I now have larger scope in terms of sample opportunities which when combined with my drawing skills, I can create exciting and fresh outcomes.
For my outcome, I have upcycled a pair of jeans and corset, through this I wanted to extend what I have learnt practically during this project as well as portray my identity. I believe my outcome was a success, I used most of the samples that are seen in my planning. The appearance of the garments specifically the corset highlighted the contours of the body, creating a more feminine figure, thus creating the androgyny as it contrasts with other masculine areas of the figure, such as the shoulders. Through upcycling I have incorporated many skills that I have learnt in this project, such as in embroidery and print, my samples include appliques, aqua film, disperse dyes and hand embroidery. I am most pleased with the incorporating my research from artist., I decided to model my outcome myself to reflect the similar approach seen in Cindy Sherman’s work. After selecting my favourite images, I edited them so that the hue of the images was pastel blue or pink, this fitted perfectly with my theme and enhanced the patterns on the jeans and the corset.
However, if I had more time, I would have liked to off add to more hand embroidery to the legs of the jeans, to reflect more of my chosen colour palette as well as to break up the blue colour of the jeans. Moreover, I wished I incorporated more of my print samples into my outcome, this is because my samples include different patterns, if I used the majority of them I would have developed the abstract and flamboyant appearance to portray my androgyny to a greater extent.
