Work Experience.

Ive been thinking about work experience, and im not sure entirely about what i want to do...
i would really like to learn more about tailoring, i think its one of the areas i am more interested in fashion.
Location wise i could do it in Leeds, Brighton where i live or london cos i have alot of family and mates who live there. So the choice is pretty wide..
I have a massive love for one mens tailoring company in brighton, Gresham Blakes. Its in the lanes and i use to go in there for lots of inspiration for my foundation which was over the road. so im tempted to email them for work experience next summer.

http://www.greshamblake.com/

Or Gieves and Hawkes in Leeds...

Other than tailors i literally have no idea where i would like to gain work experience.
I am going to do some on the emmerdale wardrobe set soon, a few of my friends are sound producers there and they said i can go and help out in the studio sometime!
I always wanted to do costume when i was younger, and the idea of working in television really appeals to me...

I hate thinking about the future though, it makes me feel a bit sick!
What i really want to do is move abroad, to south of france or north of spain, and go on cruise ships for a while as a barmaid and see the world...

The fashion world is all a bit cut throat for me! ive come to realise just how many people are fighting ove one job or to be different. i cant take it!

i just try not to get too caught up thinking about all that...

Thoughts etc

Some bastard ate my ben and jerrys so im not altogether happy.
A whole new tub !
but its okay ...

im very excited about innovative cut, i like pattern cutting alot, ive got some exciting ideas. I want to go straight back to menswear...
i want to do a take on military wear, pockets, built in gloves, hat etc, quite gadgety clothes with inside hidden pockets and big collar, wind protection etc.
im dead excited about cutting something so precise and exciting!

few little ideas ... combining design ideas
future fashion.

Inspiration

Beginning critical and contextual studies.

Surprisingly i very much enjoyed our lecture this morning, with the lovely tom, after having a terrible year last year not understanding a word, i learned more in this hour than the whole of last year.
We were learning about aesthetics and beauty which was fascinating.
How you have to disengage with something to truly appreciate somethings beauty. When someone considers something beautiful for example another person. This is because they are attracted or associate them with sex. To truly appreciate beauty none of these other factors can intefere with objectifying the person as beautiful.

Learning about DesCartes and "i think therefore i am" ideas. and dualism, where "the body is the vehicle of the mind". He told us about how Descartes believed nothing truly exists except the mind of the individual and thats how everything is built up around the mind of the person.
All the different philosophers have completely different theories and ideas, it seems a bit crazy.
How did they come up with all these thoughts, and why ! how did they ever even begin to think of these theories!
Still fascinating none the less, it made me quite thoughtful all day.
Marcells seminar was also suprisingly good, he reinforced the lecture and we had a good discussion, which brought up some interesting points...
im left unusually satisfied from philosophical talks!

Final elective photos.

digital photography

For my digital photography elective i got into the work of avedon, paticuarly his portraits as he travelled across America of everyday life for many different workers, captured in all of its raw and gritty truth. From snakes and dead animals to cowboys, the pictures are beautiful , intimate and emotional, you can almost imagine the day to day life of each person.

These are three of my favourites.

The beekeeper in paticular is such a weird image. I want to use exciting props and weird poses etc to create some odd looking images.

Cosy time

My final coat modelled by Bella...beautiful!

Vanessa Beecroft

while researching for my photography elective, i have discovered a new artist love, Vanessa Beecroft. Her work instantly reminded me of The chapman brothers, who i have a massive passion for. Her work is mainly performance, but captured into the most incredible photographs.

While researching further, alot of her work is to do with eating disorder and the the body obsession with women, which has influenced a vas majority of my own fine art work in the past.

I find her work fascinating, intriguing and the bold stark colours visually very appealing.

Depressed

i hate my elective, i feel like a caged animal

Year two so far

Lessons learned:

never let ian pick you a group.

This project has been the worst and most stressful thing i have ever had to do.

The only outlet i have had is getting back into drawing again, and being bullied into doing womenswear by an absent group was maybe a good thing because i have at least opened my horizons to new ideas...

However I am very proud of my coat i have constructed, i am gutted it does not fit me and genuinely quite miserable that i am being bullied into giving it to my slim armed flatmate who looks very nice in it.

Aside from my design development and my final garment, The rest of my work is a disaster i am unmotivated and actually becoming depressed whenever the mere thought of it enters my head.

And sitting here in my elective, in a dark tiny mac room having spent all day on fucking computers is not helping my mood in the slightest.

Year two action plan

My main weak points this year have been mostly time keeping, non concentration especially at the beginning of term, and lack of motivation at times.
Next year i am going to set targets on a daily basis and keep to them as best i can. I really made use of time when we had enforced tasks to do by whichever time, so if i can set myself those goals next year i feel i will acheive alot more in college time.
I am easily distracted so i need to sort of work on my own and set myself up away from people in order to acheive these kind of tasks. I often leave deadlines til last minute because i am slow to start and i find i work slowly on research and enjoy reading it in too much depth and am left a few days before with nothing but research which doesnt even look like alot because its not always on paper, more in my head.

At the beginning of term i think i took far too much advantage of the freedom of living on your own and wanted to venture in leeds too much, and without strict parents to enforce staying in and working, i allowed myself too much party time. This has definately calmed down alot through the year, especially with my spending habits!
Next year i aim to be focused on my work alot more, i really want to push my ideas further, rather than settling last minute because there is no more time to pursue them and ive left it too late.
I have chosen Fashion and Innovation pathway, which im excited for, i aim to become much more competent with technology, the industry is so tech based these days that without that knowledge it will be difficult to pursue a career in it.
I want to learn alot more about promotion and business, to promote yourself in the competitive industry.

15 images

My 15 final images, not necessarily the best, but my favourite parts of the year...

The Beginning of the year, Drawing Workshops, i love this free experimental style of drawing


This is my other favourite, i love the orangey warm colours and the fluidity of the pen lines.

The Research on the Chapman Brothers really excited me, id seen their work before but never fully appreciated the meaning and concepts behind it.

My final piece from Chapman Brothers research, i love the strangeness of the picture, how ian looks like an alien. It was very constricting and tight and i was very pleased with the final outcome.

Researching at the beginning of Creative Practices was very exciting, this is probably where i had my most interesting ideas all year,

The knitting samples had to go in, i was so proud of myself when i taught myself to knit from the internet, id love to learn more techniques. It can be very innovative

Designing for a market was at first so hard for me, id never done it before but i quickly began to get so many ideas, and this is my start of menswear, which was a massive step for me.

I just love my final line up, i think it works really well and i am really proud of my drawings.

Looking into Razzle Camouflage was so interesting, id never heard of it before, the whole concept was quite thrilling.

Taking from razzle camouflage i had alot of fun designing from it for my recyclable coat.

The final image of my jacket i really like, it doesnt look as though it was made from 100% recycled plastic bags, which is exactly what i was aiming for.

These are the plastic bag samples ironed together to create patterns

Jigsaw Experimentation, painted and camouflaged to look like bricks

The Geometricly striped Razzle effect jacket, little experiment to test camouflage.

My Final garment of Interdisciplinary, The Mens sportswear reversible jigsaw hoodie.

interdisciplinary

The beginning of Interdisciplinary was a massive nightmare, the fabric workshop was, for me a massive fail. i was playing about in wax as if i was three years old!



Which is strange for me, in sixth form i did textiles a level and i was obsessed by it, i was sure i wanted to go into textiley art. But i think after so long away from that i found it so difficult to get back into, all my samples were terrible! i left completely uninspired, wondering what to



As soon as i got into researching ideas it got a little better, though by this time i was pretty disheartened and a little behind.



I definately got behind in this project quickly, because i wasnt enjoying it as much as F.A.C i wanted to almost be inspired by those ideas and take them forward...which is why i began to look at geometric patterns and camo again, which i really enjoyed before.



so as soon as i got into this, i researched it out and started looking at jigsaws, which was brilliant.



Jigsaws well excited me, the whole concept of many tiny pieces creating a much larger picture.

I started playing around with painting jigsaws to look like their backgrounds...

Then started looking at more geometric patterns for ideas on camouflage etc...

Whipped up a quick example jacket of geometric camouflage, thought it looked pretty cool but was a bit simple.

I then began to have a few ideas about pattern cutting, with jigsaw seams, tried many ways, but they all stuck out at funny angles, until i considered making it reversible which really gave me some good ideas.

after a long process of finding out what worked etc, i flat pattern cut a toile and with that went on to make this reversible lycra mens jigsaw jacket...

The end result i was fairly pleased with, i had a few disasters but definately enjoyed my venture into sportswear,...whether or not i will venture back im not so sure. Its definately a specialism, because there is so much attention to detail and it has to be fitted, whereas mine is baggier than i had originally wanted.

I think this project wasnt up to scratch of many of my others, but overall i am fairly happy for how late i started...

F A C

Beginning Fashion art and culture was brilliant, i was learning alot from sues lectures and found everything really interesting. I always thought this is the kind of thing i wanted to do, concept fashion. Fashion purely to portray a deeper meaning, rather than simply aesthetic. My favourte part has always been research, reading up on everything that will influence your final ideas. I got taught exciting research development techniques on foundation, and this helped alot with this project. Looking into globalisation and how the recession is affecting our economy and the way we spend and waste. eventually leading into recycling, which excited me greatly.

Looking into landfill sites i discovered we only have 8 years left before we have to ship our rubbish to different countries to dispose of. This got me very passionate, i think its disgusting that we have no control in all our greed and spending and easy disposable lifestyle. why should we be allowed to begin to trash other countries now that we realise we cannot control our own?

If we had begun to recycle a long time ago i think we could have prolonged the inevitable pile up of waste impending on us, but it is very much too little too late.

i got into researching ways of recycling waste into fashion, and plastic bags took my interest. How many plastic bags -shopping etc do we each as an individual throw away daily? just in your household?

They are incredibly durable which made me wonder why they are not used, combined with other fabrics to produce really strong waterproofs, tents, army stuff etc...

I researched a bit more and found that when they are ironed together the new fabric they create is so strong, it is almost impossible to tear.

Also can be sen together, trap stuff in etc..

i had a play about with creating nice patterns...

This inspired me to look at camo patterns and army stuff to inspire the fabric choice.

and eventually ended up looking at razzle pattern for navy warships to lead on to this as my final idea

with beautiful gman modelling for me!

Loving Menswear

In the middle of Creative Practices i discovered that i love doing menswear. It had never been something id really been able to do. It seemed like a natural progression throughout the project, from when i started to look more in mens shops for market research, and being more interested in that. Almost all of my best friends are boys and i have always been shopping with them for their clothes so i have always taken a retail interst in menswear. This then applied into high street design really got me excited, so i think this could be a turning point for me...
I think men have it bad for choice and good clothes on the highstreet, i think there is a massive gap in the market for a certain area of menswear.

MARKET LEVEL RESEARCH.

Beginning this project i was very excited at the idea of market research and investigating into buying and the business side of fashion. also id never done a fashion project that was aimed at a market, so all of it was entirely new. id always been encouraged to design as flamboyantly and excitingly as i could so id never held back.
Actually having to consider who would wear your clothes and where you could sell them was for me at the beginning a bit of a nightmare.

Starting off by researching into trends was good fun, although i kept getting side tracked into trying on and buying garments rather than just photographing them and leaving them there. So it wasnt good for the strain on my purse.

At this time i was massively stressed by my job, my boss fired all the barmaids apart from me so i was on my own working almost every night which was shit. But im terrible at saying no. I think december was the worst month for me so far, i had run out of money buying clothes! and was working all the time for no real gain!
I have cut my hours in my job down loads now, i work like two evenings a week, which is manageable, anymore than that and you dont really have a life outside college and work.

Going home for christmas was brilliant, it made me much calmer, and less stressed, i think i caught up on three months of no sleep in two weeks.

I didnt do much work over christmas which was my downfall really, i got a bit behind with the project, and i hadnt really done enough for the market levels because all i really wanted to do was get onto the containers part and start researching!

When i began looking into "containers" i wanted to do something with supeheroes and hidden identity, containing secrets etc...i went off researching into this and began looking into graff and street art which is a big passion of mine. I used to do lots of stencilling when i was younger, me and my mate used to do stencils all around the town we lived, and i was enjoying looking into it all again.
This led me into doing men's sportswear which ive always wanted to have a go at, but it just wasnt working for me, the designs were very generic and dull and i couldnt see a way past it, so i looked further into other routes, like blood cells and fertilisation and the body, which i found an outlet into knitting. This is where i started really enjoying the project. id never knitted before but i found myself learning on the internet and having a great time making some interesting samples. This helped my design go much further, the annoying thing is that i started enjoying myself too late, i could have spent ages more on this part of the project and i felt my final line up and samples were a bit rushed.
despite this, i liked what i did hand in, even though i know i could have taken it much further at that point.

Creative Design Realisation

Pattern Cutting!
I loved every session of pattern cutting, i love the process. Its like maths and fashion, and seeing it put together and work at the end is amazing. I like the measuring and adapting patterns to unusual features of the garment. I dont enjoy the sewing together neatly of the pieces so much, its very time consuming and i am too messy with sewing.
Id done an ncfe in pattern cutting in foundation which definately helped in the beginning of doing this project. Andrew is an amzing tutor, he really helped with understanding even further.
My garment wasnt amazing or anything, but i enjoyed it so much, i think the more pattern cutting you do, the more you grow to love it, and i cant wait to get better at it in these future years.

Elective

I began my elective "Visualisation and Illustration" absolutely hooked on it. I thought i was really enjoying the freedom of the elective being so broad and undefined. But when it got more into it i dreaded going to the elective sessions because i literally sat there entirely unsure of what we were meant to be doing at all. As much as i thought my tutor was ace, he confused me alot, he'd be trying to broaden our perspectives while encouraging us that whether we wanted to do a tap dance or a puppet show or a mime for our final piece that would be okay. I left me feeling pretty thick and like i didnt want to be there.
I massively fell behind doing the work and missed a few sessions because of work in the pub and the fact that i hated it.
that stressed me out alot over christmas and half term i decided to ask to do another because i couldnt stand the thought of even trying to do the work. So i have restarted another, which is just illustration this time, which is much more suited to me because its what i enjoy the most and i draw all the time in my spare time anyway.

november

Catching up from what i should have been writing...

forgot my password and then forgot this existed...very very naughty.

So November...

Handind in of Creative approaches, was pretty pleased with project in general and enjoyed doing it. the more fine arty approach is what i most enjoy so the straight jackety thing i made was exciting.

this is the final photograph. Based on the idea of "falling from the sky" ie alien!

With Beautiful ian modelling for me!

was ever so pleased with grade i recieved, i believe it was 76 so happy days.

Felt alright at this time, not too stressed, work was manageable, and seemed to be coping alright. my big problem has always been organisation, so when things started to come on top of each other is when i start getting things wrong...