Fabric Fails

I started to make my mask while at home today. I purchased three different sized beads and wire to create the cage affect mask. While I was buying materials I also tried to find the red PVC fabric that I wanted for my ruff. I went in every fabric shop in shepherds bush, believe me there are tons and wasn't able to find exactly what I was after so i ended up choosing a clear fabric in the end which I thought I could decorate with beads instead. A few people on the course have said that they struggled to find their desired fabric, this made me think how important it is to do some fabric research and shopping to know whats available and /or in your budget before planning your design around it. I need to keep that in mind for future designs.

Final Corset Session

Today was the final session for corset. This meant that we needed everything finished today or we would be on our own, (without THE Nikki's help). During this session I was overlocking my corset and managed to get it caught in the overlocker which resulted in a huge hole being ripped in the corset. This set me back slightly and meant that I needed to re do a whole panel.
I think that this probably happened as I was in a rush to get the corset finished quickly. I did however manage to get the corset finished today and just have to hand stitch a couple of bits at some point!

V&A

Over the weekend I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, on elf my favourite places to visit in London. The historical costumes on display are incredible. I mainly went to visit the Balenciaga Exhibition that was on. His costumes are inspiring on so many levels. Each of the costumes on show had a relevance to a different time period of country of origin. One of the pieces was inspired by India. It was based on a traditional Sari, usually formed of a single long piece of fabric which is pleated and wrapped around the body. The Balenciaga couture version is created using many different pieces. The outer layers are sewn and hooked to a boned underdress. A mock drape then falls from the back to the front of the dress to give a traditional feel.

The dress is stunning and Balenciagas way of designing garments in a modern way that keeps their origin is fascinating.

Final Design

I have come up with a final design for my Ruff and Mask. After much thought I decided to go for the Queen of Hearts but a modern approach to her costume. I was watching the Alice in wonderland film with my niece when I decided to use this as my character for my design. The character is famous for her line, "off with their heads" so I thought it would be interesting to create a cage style mask around her head to show the fear of her own head being "lost".

F&S

Todays lecture was from Amy on the Baroque and Rococo period which I hadn't really learnt much about in the past so that was extremely interesting. Before this we heard from Kevin who gave us an insight into his previous work. I was fascinated to see the costumes he's made. I was particularly interested in his replica Marilyn dresses. I have always liked the idea of re creating looks of the past especially elaborately glamorous ones like Monroe's wardrobe.

Kevin's message was to emphasise how important it is to be kind to everybody after he was approached by a random man with a duffel bag, who ended up being the key to his future of making glamorous Marilyn dresses.

It is important to be kind and helpful to anyone who you encounter throughout your life. It is easy to forget this in times of stress but ultimately you should treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself. Upon thinking about this I realised that my most successful friends and family members are those who chat to everyone and get to know as many people as they possibly can.

"No matter how educated, talented, rich or cool you believe you are, how you treat people ultimately tells all. Integrity is everything."

Corset Cont'd

Our following corset session was when the corset really started to come to life. We added the centre back panels and added the eyelets. They were starting to look so great.
I find in the sessions that instead of just getting on with my work I keep asking others for guidance. Generally I already know what to do I am just worried about doing the wrong thing. This is the wrong way to be thinking as without mistakes I will never get any better (also its probably a bit annoying for me to keep asking people questions). So I need to start trusting my gut as when I work alone I won't have that opportunity.

COS

The cutting on stand session today was so interesting! We worked on draping a 1930's dress. Using a draped fabric we used the weight of the fabric to let us naturally hang the dress. The neckline was a cowel neckline. I found the session very interesting! Kathleen definitely has a knack for working with fabric.  realised during the session that this is a great way of creating your own garments from scratch! After this session i felt inspired so I ordered a mannequin when I got home.

Corset

During the last corset session we worked on a pattern block. This time we were starting to create the corset. At the beginning of the session Nikki showed us what she wanted our corsets to be looking like by the next session. This put the fear in all of us as it looked (to what I thought) seemed like an almost finished corset. By the end of the session I was still tracing the pattern pieces and although I wasn't the only one still at this stage, there were people who were much further ahead so this had me considering my timing of work and how I need to speed up to get things done on time.
Regardless I took the corset home and worked on it that night and got so much done. I found that when working at home without any distractions I could work well and efficiently. Considering it was the first time making a corset and also the first time i'd used my new sewing machine it went well.

Life Drawing

This morning was our first life drawing session. I hadn't ever done life drawing before. Something that myself and also the tutor picked up on was that I draw all my drawings with lines and rarely use shading to start an image and therefore found certain tasks hard when asked to start with just shadow or light shades before drawing in any lines. This is something I would like to work on as I think it could make my designs more realistic if I can step away from the use of lines.

During the start of the session we were asked to stand in a circle and look at the person to the left of us for 2 minutes and study every part that we could during those two minutes. We then had to describe all we could about that individual, for example their hair style, clothes, shoes etc as well as smaller details like chipped nail varnish, scuffed shoes. The point of this task was to emphasise how important it is to really look at a person when drawing them. I'd like to work on making my designs more individual to the person who will be wearing the garment so that the facial features and body shape show them for how they truly are.

CSM Influence

During my usual daily routine of scrolling through Pinterest, I started to look at architects that have moved into fashion or costume design. I stumbled upon a designer named Yuki Hagino, whose work I was immediately drawn to. I couldn't find much info on her though other than the fact that she attended CCW!

Her collection "Sculpting Mind" uses origami style patterns to create dresses that are striking. I was thinking of incorporating some sort of geometric patterns into my ruff possibly using plastic materials. I've been sketching up a few different designs today.

Fabric Shopping

I went to shepherds bush today to check out the fabric stores, and to buy my corset fabric. While looking around I became inspired by all the different fabrics for the personification project. 

A few fabrics that I kept being drawn to were, lace fabrics that I am thinking could work well for a mask that covers the face, stiffened - using fabric stiffener, (glue and starch).  For the ruff I'm thinking I want to make a traditional style ruff but with a modern fabric, e.g. using a PVC fabric but use modern techniques. 

As for colours and characters, I need to work on some ideas and decide on a final product, I think I may do this over the weekend, I have some fashion magazines that I need to flick through and grab some inspiration from. 

I collected some samples from the fabric stores that I was interested in using for the project, so I will attach them to my sketchbook.

Fashion & Style

 Today’s Fashion and Style lecture with Amy Hare was extremely interesting. She spoke about various designers and their work. Someone that I found inspirational was Norah Waugh, although I hadn't actually heard of her before, I had however admired the incredible designers who studied her work e.g. Alexander McQueen & Anthony Powell, whose work are both inspirational.

During the lecture, I felt that there were a few designers who I hadn’t researched enough and feel I should definitely know more about so I’ve been on an amazon spree tonight looking into a few of the books that Amy showed us in order to expand my knowledge on designers of costume and Fashion.

Personification

 Personification [per-son-uh-fi-key-shuh n] 

1.

the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimateobjects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.

2.

the representation of a thing or abstraction in the form of a person,as in art.

3.

the person or thing embodying a quality or the like; an embodimentor incarnation

This project has instantly grabbed me and I am beyond excited to get going with this unit. Finally getting to design and create something that we can completely fabricate from our own minds. We must create a character/creature through the design and creation of a ruff and a mask. 

After thinking on what I could create I am thinking of potentially creating something using beading and possible wire for a mask, then possibly a plastic material for the ruff - I need to come up with more ideas for the ruff.

Concerned that my knowledge of making costumes could taint my ability to create the designs that I come up with, however I am excited to get started with this project!