That's a wrap!

This is where 'Time of Your Life' kicks in and a slow-mo slideshow pops up of all the images of the semesters work; the good, the bad, the ugly.

Unfortunately you won't see that in this blog. Partly because it would be horribly cliche, partly because it would remind me of standing in a circle at our grade six graduation party, but mostly because I'm really not that organised nor do I have the energy to waste.

So instead you have a simple wrap up from me. It's no Green Day, but that's life.

We have got a little over a week to go, and the usual lockdown has begun for the presentation.

• In terms of the blog it's been a welcome addition to my work. I find typing on a computer and letting all my thoughts out really helped to progress my ideas and experiments. It started in DAS in second year where we had to write 1000 words each week. Some people didn't like this but it came naturally to me and I found it easy to do.
• The difference between working in the traditional '2d' format and this semesters format has been completely different. The fact that I could develop a new design process excites me for two reasons

1. We could actually develop our own process!

2. The fact that I actually like the designs that have resulted from the process.

I had a goal to actually like what I was producing this semester. That's actually happened.

The fact that there was no structure was frustrating and daunting at points, too much choice is often difficult. But once I found a rhythm in my process it was easy to keep going. I just keep going back to the revelation that is Brian Eno and the Material Vs Process week.

The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation – particularly in studios – tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you’re in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that’s going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn’t the case – it’s just the most obvious and – apparently – reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, “Don’t forget that you could adopt *this* attitude,” or “Don’t forget you could adopt *that* attitude.”

Brian Eno

I've drawn a lot from this quote throughout the semester. When your stuck, it is about not automatically going to what is comfortable and known, you have to push past that and it's not always easy.

• The classes at the start of the semester were a solid grounding for our own work. The presentations that were given helped me a lot to know 'what else was out there'. You can get stuck focusing on the same designers and their work,which creates this tunnel vision that's hard to break out of. What I love about being in a class environment is learning from other people(cough, cough, suck, cough) , hearing what others know, who to look up etc. That's where the blog has been so good, because you have this continuous conversation with everyone. The class environment has been really open, no one is there for themselves, we're working as a team.

As for the presentation, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll be organised and prepared enough to stay calm, theres still a lot I need to nut out. I've got a couple of prototypes that I will be working on over the weekend, so i won't get a chance to post them. I want to take the last experiment and develop that further. Maybe take the bias prototype and see what happens there. Another prototype I want to complete is the stay garment. Once I have completed these that will be it for the garments. I need to complete my book and video and prepare for the presentation which is getting scarily close.

So for now my bloggers,

that's all folks..

(insert looney tunes jingle here)

Some things just don't work...but others...

So I had this brilliant plan that was just going to work so seamlessly and probably be a turning point in the whole semesters work and just put me on a level that was so far above any prototypes I'd made so far. With that kind of expectation what could go wrong? Some things just don't work the way you think. At various points along a designers work this always seems to pop up.
What's the idea Laura? I (don't) hear you ask, well it had to do with the stays. I used the singlet pattern as a start and then cut out areas around the neckline and armholes. The space that was cut out was to be held in place by the ribbons. When I started to stretch the singlet I realised this just wasn't working. The fabric was to weak to hold the ribbon that was sewn onto it, and as a result some of the ribbons were torn when I begun stretching them. Big, fat, fail.

The prototype before I began stretching

It's hard to focus primarily on the process with my work because there are no 'final' outcomes that I will produce, and so it's hard to be clear on when to stop. I wanted to sum up what I had discovered in some way with a few prototypes. They wouldn't be final pieces just a summary of techniques and processes that I had gone through this semester. For the first prototype that I wanted to produce I looked back over all the experiments I had completed and found that I wanted to work with one that I hadn't kept continuing to explore. I started with the basic pattern and made three prototypes, a warp, weft and bias. Once constructed I stretched the samples and then pinned them to paper and (as accurately as I could) traced around them. I completed this process 3 times and the results made me feel like the process was working. I wouldn't say that the prototypes had unexpected results but I guess you never really know for sure how the fabric will react to the stretching.
I layered each prototype on each other to create one piece joined at the shoulder seams. You could see the progression of the stretching clearly this way. As designs, I like the results I achieved. The way that you can stumble over design with this process is what I am drawn to. Only a small amount of the 'garment' is designed (the basic singlet that I started with), you can predict what might happen but as the stretching can vary depending on the stretch applied results can't be guaranteed.

Weft-front

Bias-front

Bias-sideFront-Warp

The grid

Looking at the last experiment I wrote about I created a grid of squares that were cut in the warp, weft and bias. I sewed them all together in a jumble, for eg. a weft square would be sewn in between a bias and weft sqaure. The images below shows you how warped the square became once it was stretched. Unlike the dress I wrote about in the previous post I decided to stretch the squares once they were sewn together. This has been a bit of a struggle throughout the semester because originally I liked the idea of stretching a pattern, so there would be no rips in the seams and to me it was something I hadn't really heard of before. Having said that there always seems to be someone who has done what you're doing anyway! I've gone back and forth between stretching with the pattern and stretching the constructed garment. I'm not sure which is better yet, it's certainly much easier to stretch when the garment is made. They achieve slightly different results. The experiment which I blogged about last post worked well, but because the fabric stretched at different lengths, there was that gathered effect that I didn't like. The bias, warp and weft have minds of their own and you need to predict there moves before you design.

Before

After

Following on from my 'stay' experiment I decided to do a few little tests to work out the effects I could create. The image below shows the 3 squares that I cut out in the warp, weft and bias with a calico ribbon sewn across the stretch. The second image shows the effects of the stretching. The stays are an indicator of the fabrics original structure, and I can see this inspiring a new design quite easily. You could go crazy with the stays and try and keep the original shape of the singlet with heaps and heaps of the ribbons.

Before

After

Wires Crossed

I had a discussion with Ricarda in class and showed her the 'stay' prototype that I wrote about in the previous posts. She looked a little confused when I showed her the dress and then explained her definition of 'stays'. I made myself look a little foolish but once I understood what I had to do I was interested to see the results. This is the result.
I used a elongated singlet pattern, and attached 'ribbons' of calico over the singlet by sewing the ends. They were placed in different directions and the pattern was cut with the warp running across the pattern.

Using stays

You can see from the image that after the stretching some of the stays weren't needed because the fabric didn't stretch in that direction. The only stays that had an effect were the ones that were going in the same direction as the weft. It's good when you get results like this because it makes you realise how much you can jump into design without thinking things through or taking into account simple things. So when I do my next design it will be much more considered.

Another experiment I did was going back to one of my origy-didgy ideas. I wanted to stretch patterns before I sewed them to see what effect it would have. Because the original idea was trialed with the 70% patterns they were quite simple, and as we now know, pretty much don't stretch! So I created a pattern that was cut up into different design lines, having an idea how each pattern would stretch if cut in a certain direction. The patterns were mostly cut in the weft or bias with the shoulders being the only patterns cut on the warp.

Left:stretched, Right: original pattern

The image above shows how much the pattern distorted after the fabric was stretched. Notches were very useful but as I learned you actually needed to mark the notches with a texta. Once the pattern was stretched the snipped notches couldn't be seen because they stretched.

Front
Back

Side

The process of pinning the patterns together was quite long because the fabric rolled at the edges and was difficult to handle. Some of the patterns cut on the weft had edges that no longer matched up the bias cut patterns because the stretch was to great. These had to be stretched as I sewed and created the gathered effect that you can see particularly on the back of the dress. The bias patterns twisted the design and the weft patterns lengthened the design which created this warped effect that was unexpected.

I began another prototype which was just cutting out the patterns in the weft direction. This was interesting because all the patterns could be stretched to match each other.

Some inspiration...

This interview with Ruth Hogben gave me a little insight and inspiration for my film. Her work for Gareth Pugh was pretty amazing, and from the fashion database in my head , original.

I like how she talks about film and fashion towards the end. "It means people are appreciating fashion film in a serious way and it's not just an add on, or a making of...it's actually becomming a genre in its own right, and it isn't taking over anything else, it's not to replace shows, it's not to replace print, it's a new genre."
Ruth Hogben,2009

I've read a lot of articles how this is going to be it, the runway is dead. Ruth put it quite simply, it's neither, 'it's a new genre'.

Helvetica love...

http://ffffound.com/image/404be9de033ea9e8fcbdb4fc21341708f41daaa8

As I start thinking about the layout of my book, I found this image on FFFound. Thought you would enjoy it!

In the Studio...

I felt a little professional on Thursday because I booked the photography studio on level 7 to do some of my recording. I had two garments.
1- Another version of the pink 'slash' dress. I changed the patterns slightly because there were a few issues with the shape of some of the patterns. I also included one pattern piece going up the centre of the garment.
2- Anchors- When I discussing how I could move forward with design, Ricarda suggested I look into 'stays', I think that's how you spell it, on garments. You find them on T-shirts often along the shoulder seams to prevent the garment from distorting out of place.

I did a semi-naughty thing yesterday. I went to American Apparel (the worst store to get anything remotely close to service or for that matter any type of human interaction). I went back to buy some t-shirts from the same viscose fabric that my singlet top was. (You know, the one that keeps on growing in length every single wash!)
I bought them, knowing that they would stretch, but I don't mind to much because that's what I'm investigating. Garments that distort out of shape, but you like the results when they do...

Back to the subject.
I recorded the stretching of each of the garments, with the help of the lovely, Hila, Fi and Jana.
I have to rethink each of them-especially the second garment. The position of the stays needs to be thought about before I make another one. The results weren't very obvious.
The first one made me rethink about the way I cut the pieces. I used the warp of the fabric, but as use can see from the pictures, the one piece that worked the best was the one down the centre. This was because the pattern was quite thin, but also because I was stretching that piece in the weft i.e. downwards, not across.
Again I'm not going to upload the videos unfortunately. The files are way too big.
Hopefully you'll get the idea with the photos.

Before Stretching

After stretching

Before Stretching

After Stretching