Day 20 - Monet reaches the catwalk.

Wearable Art (Influenced by 'The Cliffs at Etretat')

Today was really good to be able to immerse yourself in the making' process. I spent quite a while cutting my paper into strips, which I eventually realised was quite excessive. However, I made sure that for this task I was prepared with my materials in advance.

I chose this coat design (bottom right hand corner, turned into cape) because it reflected the shadow and light contrasts in the cliffs and each strip represented a cliff. The structured element was integrated from the rectangular shapes from the designs of the magazine tears. I thought combining both elements would add another dimension of fluidity and structure. The ripped rough edges of areas of the coat represented the rough texture of the overall Monet painting. I also focused on details of the coat, which also reflects the many layers of colours that were used in the painting. 

The most challenging part of the day was having to remember to continuously measure your model and to keep both left and right sides almost symmetrical. This was an issue because I would focus on one side and forget about the other side and once I got round to making the other side of the coat the measurements weren't quite even.  So the final product was not fitted and had no sleeves, due to time management issues (again). As the day went on, I thought the improvisation for details on the cape uplifted the cape, so the audience might have been drawn away from the other flaws on the garment… Although, this is the last day of rotation I had learnt to speed up throughout the day and present a final product of ‘wearable art’

Day 19 - Geometric/Monet Inspired Collections

Monet inspired designs turned stripy influences. 

Yet again I found the aspect of bringing 2D to 3D quite difficult, although I eventually found my niche within that by creating smaller pieces on the models rather than covering the whole model.

I thought this piece (left) went well and was my favourite piece because the colours contrast well and the structure is very sharp and strong. 

We then made 10 templates and used them to make collections of trousers and shirts from our original additions to the models. 

These items then influenced our designs for our main garments of wearable art. However, I struggled to get the proportions in my drawings but eventually sketched my ideas down. Looking at the other students' work was very fascinating because it was interesting to see how everyone approached their designs, which made intrigued to wonder what their influences could have been.

Day 18 - Monet in Fashion?

Monet in Fashion.

Settling into the ideas process in Fashion was quite slow and stiff because it was about bringing the 2D into 3D, which I found quite challenging because I had to visualise the 2D picture in 3D aspects. 

I didn't feel that my small structures represented ‘The Cliffs at Etretat’ very much because they appeared too abstract.

The explanation for these structures are that the coloured chalk on the paper represents the mixture of warm and cool tones that are in the painting. I used charcoal because it presented a rough texture on the paper, similar to the painting. Much of the small structures have been folded and have different levels of relief, which symbolise the waves and cliffs in the painting.

We had to then multiply our favourite structure on a larger scale multiple times. This task led to creating pieces of 'wearable art' made from other group's repeated pieces. I found this task quite rushed but enjoyable at the same time because the outcomes were unpredictable but if we had more time we could have created something slightly more meaningful. 

Day 17 - Fashion Photography

Fashion Photography. 

Seeing the whole studio set up immediately gained my attention to start shooting. Ideas didn't come as easy as other times on the course, but I eventually gained momentum with my ideas from looking at various fashion magazines. 

We first had a short introductory talk on how the fashion photography industry worked, which completely shook my original view on how it functioned. I anticipated that integrating yourself into fashion photography would be extremely hard (I'm sure it still is), however one can actually hire models for free in exchange for giving them photographs. This works two ways, the model and you, the photographer, gains exposure. 

Practicing shooting in the studio.

Outdoors.

I wasn't pleased with most of the photos I had captured because I didn't have a strong vision of what I wanted, therefore my photographs didn't reach the standard I wanted. Conducting more research beforehand would have helped me a lot more in order to have more inspiration and direction in the shoots. 

Directing people, in terms of giving them personas and scenarios to imagine themselves in was very enjoyable, although it became quite frustrating at times when I couldn't communicate the exact poses I wanted for the model or the model couldn't exactly understand what pose I had envisioned. Although throughout the day, directing became slightly easier throughout the day, but it was still a challenge.