Continuing on from Mondays class, we had to take our processes that were discussed in class and make a garment from our definition. I went back to some of my notes from class and decided to go with the narrative process using the Oblique Strategies card. The card I was given was 'Faced with a choice to do both". My definition was something that conceals and/or highlights the body'.
The card just clicked in with my definition so I started to scribble anything that related to that on my note pad. I played around with the idea of doing 'both';trying to highlight and conceal the body.
Highlighting what's concealed, concealing what's highlighted.
The image above shows the ideas I worked through.
I wasn't very happy with the execution of the process. The slide show is some pics I took.
1. I wanted to highlight whats concealed. So I chose aluminium foil, and covered it with a simple white knit fabric. I cut the knit so that I was highlighting the foil on the body.
2. I felt like the outcome didn't really explore the process well enough, it looked like a school project.
The slide show was from yesterday's class activity. We had a list of materials and I brought in foil, rice, soap and cups. When Adele told us that we had to replicate our garment/process with the materials everyone was worried. Sometimes these excercises will work from the start or they just won't seem to gel. I tried to play around with the materials but it was really difficult to get my head around.
My most successful material was the first one, the plastic cups. I joined them all together using a hot glue gun and then tried to 'highlight' the inside (or the body if someone was wearing the garment) by melting holes with the gun.
The exercises allowed me to think more about how the material can dictate your process. When your used to working with fabric it's so frustrating to try and construct something a fabric that doesn't have the same malleability.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Class #3 27/07/09
The topic for this week was Process Vs Material
The concept of the fashion designers process is fairly well documented. Get inspired, sketch like mad, create a sample, make the garment...
So to go back to the start and think about starting a new process that is completely different to what you're used to is really a new concept for ME. There was an interesting discussion in class about what we are taught in our course and how there is really only (for better or worse) one process that is taught and encouraged. That of the fashion designer (above). So to start thinking about new processes that could be explored is exiting and at the same time scary.
In class we had to think about the processes that were explained to us. It was really confusing to get on to this new way of thinking but I did get onto it eventually...I think.
Our last exercise was to work in groups and create a new system.
The images below show us working in the group. This was the system we came up with.
1. Choose a card from the Oblique Strategies box and let it inform how you apply the pieces (scraps of fabric, any materials you can find) onto the fabric.
2. Attach random pieces of material/fabric onto the fabric with your eyes closed.
(We found knotting the pieces worked best)
3. Take down from the wall and then 'wear' the garment in any way.
The system, 27/07/09
This was a really simplistic way of describing the process. After we discussed how the process would change each time you did it.
-The materials that you use will completely change the end result.
-The card you choose will inform how you interact with the piece of fabric.
-As you are blindfolded when you attach the pieces the outcome will be random.
The product, 27/07/09
Last week’s discussion of fashion vs. clothing comes into this idea of process. To start with you have to define what a garment is, in order to produce something. I went with something as simple as something that highlights and/or conceals the body.
So technically, what we created fitted into that definition. In order to refine the end result, you need to carefully choose your starting point. I don't think my definition is perfect so that's why the results aren't working..
Also if anyone out there is reading this blog I would love to know if there are any other design blogs written by students in relation to their semesters work. I've had a quick search and there doesn't seem to be many by fashion design students, mostly architecture...
Till next time...
Btw this is Brian Eno talking about his Oblique Stratagies cards we were using in class.
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
The concept of the fashion designers process is fairly well documented. Get inspired, sketch like mad, create a sample, make the garment...
So to go back to the start and think about starting a new process that is completely different to what you're used to is really a new concept for ME. There was an interesting discussion in class about what we are taught in our course and how there is really only (for better or worse) one process that is taught and encouraged. That of the fashion designer (above). So to start thinking about new processes that could be explored is exiting and at the same time scary.
In class we had to think about the processes that were explained to us. It was really confusing to get on to this new way of thinking but I did get onto it eventually...I think.
Our last exercise was to work in groups and create a new system.
The images below show us working in the group. This was the system we came up with.
1. Choose a card from the Oblique Strategies box and let it inform how you apply the pieces (scraps of fabric, any materials you can find) onto the fabric.
2. Attach random pieces of material/fabric onto the fabric with your eyes closed.
(We found knotting the pieces worked best)
3. Take down from the wall and then 'wear' the garment in any way.
The system, 27/07/09
This was a really simplistic way of describing the process. After we discussed how the process would change each time you did it.
-The materials that you use will completely change the end result.
-The card you choose will inform how you interact with the piece of fabric.
-As you are blindfolded when you attach the pieces the outcome will be random.
The product, 27/07/09
Last week’s discussion of fashion vs. clothing comes into this idea of process. To start with you have to define what a garment is, in order to produce something. I went with something as simple as something that highlights and/or conceals the body.
So technically, what we created fitted into that definition. In order to refine the end result, you need to carefully choose your starting point. I don't think my definition is perfect so that's why the results aren't working..
Also if anyone out there is reading this blog I would love to know if there are any other design blogs written by students in relation to their semesters work. I've had a quick search and there doesn't seem to be many by fashion design students, mostly architecture...
Till next time...
Btw this is Brian Eno talking about his Oblique Stratagies cards we were using in class.
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
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Class #2, 23/07/09
Clothing a person, 23/07/09
Today's class activity involved getting a piece of paper and
1. Clothing a person
2. Clothing something in the studio
With these kinds of exercises I sometimes forget what the intention is when I'm doing it. Editing the images that I'd taken made me think more about what the definition of clothing is. The first exercises I was thinking about two things, covering and decorating. If you look at what I created it was really just about covering my model (the beautiful Minna). I started to rip holes and weave the paper, but in the end I wasn't achieving much. Looking at everyone else's interpretation of the activity it seemed to be the same kind of thought process (from what I could tell). Some of the readings we were given this week related back to this tension between clothing and fashion. Yuniya Kawamura's Fashion-ology is a reading we were set.
"...dress attempts to balance two contradictory aims: it focuses our attractions and at the same time protects our modesty." Y.Kawamura,pp.6, 2005
Reading this line seemed to connect with what I had created in class, I was trying to cover but at the same time draw attention to a part of the 'garment'. When I had to clothe the door handle I was essentially doing the same thing, highlighting the shape of the handle, but hiding the rest of the door.
Clothing something in the studio, 23/07/09
This activity was simply about clothing, NOT fashion. Perhaps if it was about fashion, I would have photographed it in a particular way. Ricarda brought up an interesting concept which I hadn't thought much about. I'm an addict to blogs, particularly fashion and design blogs, also I'm an eBay addict. When your searching through the listings on eBay it's interesting to see the ways in which people sell their clothes through fashion. The blogger/ebayer fashiontoast is a good example of this. The blog consists of street styled photographs, with the blogger in her latest purchases. The blog is a huge success and is linked to an ebay site, which sells the vintage clothes that are photographed in a similar style to the blogs images.
As the blog has become more popular, I'm sure that the ebay store would have increased it's business, because people want to buy into the 'fashion' that is uploaded to the site. If you can buy a vintage 90's leather mini backpack from the ebay site then maybe your buying into the style that the seller has fashioned?
Also describing the item your selling is important. I know myself when I was selling my old clothes on eBay, when it comes to describing your item, you want to make it sound as exclusive as you can. 'Completley sold out in stores, a must have for winter..yaada yaada yaada.
This person had the right idea to, finding an image of a celebrity wearing the item. It may not be the same size or colour but it's a selling tool that is used all over ebay.
Looking at the example of ebay you could say fashion is simply the marketing of clothes. But is it more than that? Is there something else that contributes to our need for fashion, not clothes???
Till next blog...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Homework
Hmmm, how do you wear hack???
This may be a really simple response but I thought of the word hack in terms of an adjective. The images below show the leather jacket I hacked into. I used scissors to tear up the jacket, expose the lining and rip seams. When I put the jacket on my model, there were still sleeves and some parts of the jacket still in tact, but most of it was still unrecognisable.
Hacking a jacket, 22/07/09
Because I thought of the word hack as an action, I decided to physically apply that action to an existing garment. In trying to define what 'wearing' means, in this instance I guess I was looking at it from a visual sense. If you look at the images I took, the garment looks like it was hacked into. In saying that, I'm not sure if that brings me any closer to the original question because I 've applied the word to the garment, not neccesarily to the action of wearing. It's too hard to define!!Ahhhh...
This may be a really simple response but I thought of the word hack in terms of an adjective. The images below show the leather jacket I hacked into. I used scissors to tear up the jacket, expose the lining and rip seams. When I put the jacket on my model, there were still sleeves and some parts of the jacket still in tact, but most of it was still unrecognisable.
Hacking a jacket, 22/07/09Because I thought of the word hack as an action, I decided to physically apply that action to an existing garment. In trying to define what 'wearing' means, in this instance I guess I was looking at it from a visual sense. If you look at the images I took, the garment looks like it was hacked into. In saying that, I'm not sure if that brings me any closer to the original question because I 've applied the word to the garment, not neccesarily to the action of wearing. It's too hard to define!!Ahhhh...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Class #1 20/07/09
After being read the brief for this semester Ricarda and Adele told us to write down the first word that came to our mind. I wrote the word ‘HACK’ because it was all I could think of that quickly and it was what the majority of my work last semester was based around.
We were then given quite an abstract activity to work on. We had to ‘clothe our word’. This could have meant or been anything. I’ve got to admit when I get a really open task to complete my mind normally shuts down and has a little panic because there are no limits, which can be really intimidating. I decided to start ‘hacking’ in to the word on the paper and cut out the letters. Once they were cut out they really delicate and started to use them to cover my fingers. In a way clothing is about covering, yet because the letters were so fine, they didn’t end up covering a lot. Instead they made interesting patterns and lines over my fingers, which was like a decoration of some sort. When I removed the letters from my fingers they curled up and you could no longer tell what letters they were before.
The page that was left without the letters and just the cut out of hack was kind of cool to. It almost became a typography exercise for me because I played around with both the letters and negative space on the page.
Pics from the class, 20 July 09
For homework we have to document and experience of wearing HACK.
Remembering
-the word can exist in anyway..
-define what it means to wear… and how to wear…
it could go beyond the language structure and become something different
At the moment I’m drawing a blank as to what that might be.
We were then given quite an abstract activity to work on. We had to ‘clothe our word’. This could have meant or been anything. I’ve got to admit when I get a really open task to complete my mind normally shuts down and has a little panic because there are no limits, which can be really intimidating. I decided to start ‘hacking’ in to the word on the paper and cut out the letters. Once they were cut out they really delicate and started to use them to cover my fingers. In a way clothing is about covering, yet because the letters were so fine, they didn’t end up covering a lot. Instead they made interesting patterns and lines over my fingers, which was like a decoration of some sort. When I removed the letters from my fingers they curled up and you could no longer tell what letters they were before.
The page that was left without the letters and just the cut out of hack was kind of cool to. It almost became a typography exercise for me because I played around with both the letters and negative space on the page.
Pics from the class, 20 July 09
For homework we have to document and experience of wearing HACK.
Remembering
-the word can exist in anyway..
-define what it means to wear… and how to wear…
it could go beyond the language structure and become something different
At the moment I’m drawing a blank as to what that might be.
Back to the start
Back for another semester!
I'm going to be using this blog as a way of documenting and sorting throught my research in my studio class. It's a part of an exploratory programe so I'm really exited at the infinite possibilities that may arise at the end of the semester.
Hopefully this blog will attract other design students or anyone else interested in what I'm researching.
I've written a post tonight about my first class, but I'm having trouble with my images I took so there will be another post tomorrow.
Laura...
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