Over the past couple of weeks of working with the girls, we've formed a really close team and it's been a surprise to me at how well we all work together. We've moved on from experimenting with our starter ideas and have chosen to have two aspects to our project-Beth and Suzie are focusing on the more elaborate, decorative motifs that they have developed from researching the circus, and at the same time, Annah and I are going to continue with our simplistic geometric designs, but use them for a background behind the motifs. I'm excited to find out how this can be taken from our paper designs and printed on to fabric. Will it be as good as we envisage and start to come alive, or will it lose the depth and eye-catching effect we hope for, from being on the fabric?
THE PERFECT MUSE;
Even as a student studying Textile Design, I've always found my biggest challenge is being able to translate patterns and designs into fashion garments, therefore there was always part of me, when choosing this project, which was apprehensive towards the fashion related work.
Although at the beginning I struggled with comprehending the concept, I found creating a 'muse' for our project, to be a massive help when working on fashion illustrations or garment designs. We would then follow this individual throughout our project, using their life stories and personality to influence our future work.
As a group, we spent a long time researching and looking through books to make sure the person who we chose, was suitable for the image. We wanted them to tell a story; pulling the audience in to ask intriguing questions and stand out by themselves as much as our final garment would. The lady we finally decided on was Betty Broadbent.
Also known as the 'tatto'd lady', Betty was born on November 1 1909 in Philadelphia. Her interest in tattoos began at a very young age of just fourteen and it was when she was working as a nanny, that she came in contact with Charlie Wagner. He, along with three other artists, proceeded to tattoo a bodysuit of over 565 tattoos on Broadbent, before then introducing her to the circus man Clyde Ingalls. After discovering her passion for tattoo art, Ingalls offered her a position at the circus where Betty began exhibiting her art.
What initially attracted us to Betty was the juxtaposition of her life; on one hand there was a very elegant and innocent image portrayed through her job as a nanny and the feminine dresses she wore, whereas on the other hand she was living a life with the circus, using her hundreds of tattoos as a performance. This contradiction within her lifestyle was exactly the story we were looking for and we chose to focus on the photographs of her later in life, when producing fashion illustrations.
PATTERN DESIGN DEVELOPMENT;
We've now started to further develop our designs, incorporating our selected colour palette, as well as learning from our mistakes from past experiments. For the piece displayed below, I wanted to find a way to create a layered effect, within not only the overall image, but the background alone as well. I think the method I used here worked best of all because it still contains the complexity of the geometric shapes and lines in the background, however from using the block coloured shapes, it gives a simplistic illusion and makes the lion motif stand out much more. This then led me to wonder what the outcome would be like if I exchanged the colours and tried them the other way round. I think this works equally as well, however the line detailing within the drawings is lost and I think this is an attribute that we should try and keep.
Having an Indian based colour scheme, we were interested in seeing whether there were other aspects of the culture which we could incorporate into our work. We researched into the elaborate head pieces worn by the elephants, along with the beautiful fabrics to discover another potential to take further. After playing around with the detailing within the circus characters, we decided that we preferred the patterns inside the geometric shapes, and this would be a final background which we could use for screen printing. This was an exciting realisation for me, as it was the first opportunity where I started to see how my initial drawings were being taken even further and transferred onto the screens.
One of my most memorable moments over the past couple of weeks has been the time spent in the print room, creating a group monoprint. We worked hard together, responding to our sketchbooks however we did not achieve our desired colour palette and I think this made the final fabric less successful, so we decided not to take it any further. I think although it didn't turn out how we expected, it showed us how efficiently we worked together during the time frame we were given, and we can learn from this moment when mixing the colours in the future.
FABRIC SOURCING;
We had a wonderful advantage for this project. As a team we all live exceptionally close to Curry Mile, which is the heart of India within Manchester-the perfect thing for us! I was astounded to find the quantity and diversity of fabric the shops provided, it was incredible! After spending hours searching through endless amounts of rolls with Annah, we selected an array of fabrics, all complimenting our colour palette perfectly and were excited to meet up with the rest of the group to discuss our future intentions.
I also drew great inspiration and links with our colour scheme from the current art exhibition 'Time Machine' by Joana Vasconcelos, at Manchester Art Gallery. Her ambitious, contemporary designs instantly caught my eye, particularly a textile work that was specially commissioned as a site-specific installation for the gallery's staircase. The richly-coloured, cascading form is an explosion of colour and fabric combination, including knitting, crochet, fine silks and velvets. It was the embellishment and patchwork of patterns, fabrics and textures that appealed to me the most and I want to take inspiration from my visit to add unusual elements to our garment.
PEER REVIEW SESSION;
An important part of project work is having 'peer review' sessions, as it enables you to get a different perspective on the work you're doing and look for any improvements. Whilst allowing our peers to review our work, it also gave us the opportunity to re-evaluate where we were going and discuss any team criticisms. The feedback we received was really positive; explaining that the development of our ideas worked well, was clear and precise however it was difficult for people to fully envisage where the project was going. To overcome this issue, we plan to take full advantage of deconstructing garments, the drapery sessions and also producing a surplus amount of fashion illustrations.
PRINTING SESSIONS;
Our first session creating screen prints was an anxious yet thrilling time. The uncertainty of how the prints would come out was nerve-racking however it was amazing to see how our designs had transformed when using the correct colours on the complimenting fabrics. As this was my first printing experience, it was interesting to learn all the different techniques and I thoroughly enjoyed layering up our prints, whilst also exploring 'puff' and 'foil' with the heat press. We loved the 3-dimensional effect the 'puff' presented, as well as the vibrancy given from layering 'foil'.
CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH;
We needed to keep reminding ourselves how our project was 'Engineering for Print', therefore when developing sketches and designs for our final garment, we discussed various ideas. One of the favourites was a 'patchwork' shift dress, displaying an entire range of patterns, colour and print techniques, whilst also reflecting our muse and our initial starting points. We found great inspiration from the fashion label Basso & Brooke, once described as being 'the Pixar of clothes'.
It was obvious to see that all members of the group loved the striking colours and designs, but especially the engineering behind the clothing and abstract prints. I think what interests me most about 'engineering for print' is the ability to smoothly merge contrasting prints together so that on first glance, it comes across as seeming much more confusing than it actually is.
Another high fashion brand which we saw close comparison with, was Miu Miu. Established in 1993, the women's clothing brand offered a playful, rebellious take on fashion, at a time when Prada was at its most minimalist. It is this aspect that we want to take from the company and portray through our clothing; using the bold, striking colour scheme to get across the childhood enjoyment and excitement experienced at the fairground.
COMBINING SKILLS;
One of the qualities that I have noticed about our group, is the diversity in skills which we can all bring to the group. Even though this is a print-based project, we thought it important to use other learnt skills to our advantage and build up the variation of textiles within our final garment. Some of the girls in our group have studied digital design before, so created a selection of samples, whilst Annah and I chose to pull on our knowledge of the knitting machines, to create some small samples as well. I think the knitting is a great addition to our project; we spent a long time selecting the correct yarns and tried really hard to bring in the Indian influences by using more delicate wools, with gold thread running through them. The added colour, texture and playful aspect this brings to the piece is brilliant, as it's another way of referring back to Betty Broadbent, as well as the circus!
I also wanted to incorporate my knowledge of embroidery and as a group we decided the best way to do this was to quilt the motifs and add embellishment detail.
GARMENT DEVELOPMENT;
Throughout this entire project, we've all had a strong idea of how we want this work to develop, however at this point we are finding it difficult to envisage the final garment. We enjoyed experimenting with drapery as it enabled us to bounce ideas off each other about what we thought worked/didn't work, and how we wanted the finished piece to look. I find this way of working a lot easier than fashion illustrations, as I think it's much more realistic and helpful to work on a mannequin. I understand fashion illustrations are an important process, but using drapery allowed us to play around with pleating and ruffling the fabric, and I really enjoyed this.
FASHION ILLUSTRATIONS;
We were still struggling as to what we could create to balance the collar, so decided it would be best to work on fashion illustrations and collages. It was interesting to compare our methods of working and ideas and I think this worked well for us as a group, as it enabled us to realise what we liked and pick different areas from each others work.
Throughout this project, one of the areas that we have been told lacked the excitement that was shown through our prints, was our fashion illustrations, so as a team we all tried really hard to pull together our images and get this across. I think we managed this really well; we focused on combining all of our patterns, sketches and colour palette with our muse, to keep the playful and eye-catching aspect of our work, in our garment.
It was at this point we discussed the prospect of creating a statement collar with a more simplistic shirt underneath; the contrast between the two would compliment each other, whilst still remaining playful and without being overpowering.
CREATING THE FINAL GARMENT;
After all the work we'd done, it was an exciting moment when the time came to assemble our final piece. We did come across some issues, such as the fact that only one member of the team was a fashion student, however we compensated for this by helping each other through the entire process and learning as we worked.
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