I began this week by taking images that best represent my personality, physicalisty and overall self through a photo booth format. The idea of this task was to display photographs which best represent you, and I did this by focusing on different parts of my Body such as my eyes for example, because they are my favourite feature, and also on objects such as my shoes and glasses that are part of my everyday style.

 I also added in objects to make the photograph more visually interesting and to build on different ideas of how myself as an individual  would he portrayed by an objects aswell, as they can help lead to initial thoughts for a final photo shoot. The most useful and interesting part of this task was to look at others reactions to my photos, as others in my group had different takes and opinions on how they perceive my personality through my images, and this also triggered ideas for a photo shoot. 

We were also required to style eachother using our own garments and accessories, this was a really enjoyable task because It was a way of creating different personalities for people through styling them with your own garments, and it was also good for discovering how to use clothes in other ways than they were intended, for example putting jackets on back to front, inside out, and using necklaces as head pieces or belts. I think that the aim of this task was to pass your personal style onto others but find ways to make that style more subjective to the physicality and personal style of the individual you were styling, which I found quite difficult. It made me think a bit more outside the box and how to combine different garments together that I wouldn't normally do. 

We then moved on to style eachother using other peoples styling kits as oppose to our own, and this was quite interesting because we had to create a new personality for the individual and give them the personality of all the different clothes and garments I had to work with. I really enjoyed this process because it was fun to try and think about the type of person or target market I would be targeting when I'm styling with the clothes I was given.

Day 2 

After styling eachother with are own garments, we were required to form into groups and create a trend report which we would later present to the rest of out group. in order for us to understand the current trends from the perswpctive if different target markets and retailers we all went to different areas of London. Some of us focused on high street retailers which were extreamlu useful in terms of what is currently selling successfully to our target market of you. Adults and students, and others including myself went to high end stores to see how the current trends differ from high street retailers.

I visited Bond Street for my part of the trend report which is home to all the luxury brands. Some stores were harder to take photographs of the actual garments themselves, however each shop window had the main trend/ style that was currently popular at that time, so I went around each store photographing the shop windows and trying to piece together any recurring trends that I noticed. Chanel initiated the leather and tartan trend which were the two most popular trends I discovered. I also noticed allot of biker Wear,  leather skirts, tailored jackets , and allot of black simplistic dresses, and these were all more sophisticated to suit the target makert that were likely to shop in high end stores. Bold prints were also a key trend that I noticed in stores such as Missoni, Burberry, and Joseph which was something quite bold and different for the current autumn/winter season. 

when our groups got back in the studio we all managed to gather the same trend information but from different retailers and target markets, varying from designer boutiques to the hisghstreet.  in order to create a clear presentation to the rest of our peers we each took a trend and presented it on an a1 board. The aim of this was to make the board obvious to the audience of what the message and key trend was, so that a designer can easily create a collection from it for example. 

To give our trend report more of a story and a message, we researched into the history of each trend. So for tartan we looked back at classic Vivienne Westwood designs to show how designs of tartan has changed and modernized over time, and for the leather tend we looked at 80's punk fashion and musical influences to give the audience more  information on the classical elements of each trend .

 Presenting our boards to our peers and tutor was very challenging, especially as most groups had the same trends and similar information. It was up to us to ensure that we identified what the key information was and made it as impactful as possible, by going deeper into the importance of the designs, colours, and patterns to show how each trend differs from market to market. What made our presentation more interesting to our peers was that we gave our opinions on why we think these are the current trends right now. Was it the economy? politics? or musical influences for example. 

more than anything this enabled me to become more confident in delivering information to a group, aswell as working with others to form a presentation and taking on board everyone's ideas to make it impactful and making the message clear, aswell as Sharing my own opinions and going deeper into my findings. 

I would say that my entire group thought that we could have improved on making our Boards more clear in terms of what the trend was just by looking at them. some of our boards needed more explaining as to what the trend was, and this could have been avoided if we had used more images to build up more of a story, however this was all down to poor time management and failing to delegate a different responsibility for each  member of our group. however it was a great experience in becoming more confident in the points I was making and being able to back them up with images. Aswell as Woking within a team. 

Day 3 

To continue with this project of identity we were required to come up with a concept for a photo shoot which had to be representative of ourselves, and this could be in terms of physicality ,

personality or personal style. I wanted to focus on showing my personality through this photo shoot and include what is important to me, to show who I am as an individual. I began to think about ways I could photograph myself in the shoot, however I wanted to show myself in a way that does not neccasrily include me, and is not over representational. Looking back at my initial mind map I focused on the ten words which best describe me, and the word that had the moat significance to me was being "family orientated". 

This word triggered ideas for my shoot, and I created five mood boards to inspire my ideas. When thinking about the type of model I was going to use to best describe this side to my personality, I decided to use my young niece and nephew, as they are a big part of my life and to me represent being family orientated. 

The idea behind my shoot was to give the impression of showing family life, and having quite a natural unstaged surrounding. My first mood board was based around my own old family photographs of myself and my brothers and sisters showing our natural relationship, which is silly, playful and fun. My niece and nephew being brother an sister have that natural instinct to argue, play fight laugh and play around so I was confident that I would get the right type of shots.  most of the images were of young children giggling and just being children! so I wanted the mood of my shoot to be very unstructured and not too controlled so that I got really natural and honest shots, that are true to my normal family life. 

for the set of my shoot It was important that it not only was a homely atmosphere but that it was a natural ulsetting because I love open natural spaces and organic structures such as flowrs and gardens. My mood board for the set consisted of really rustic outdoor garden furniture, laterns, and most importantly flowrs, shrubs, bushes and greenery. 

I came to the conclusion of using my garden as the set for this shoot because not only was it an effective way of putting across my family vibe, but it has a really understated greenery which I added roses to the bushes to give more of an impact and visual interest.  

Another part of my research for poses and gestures that my niece and nephew could do was to gather old photographs of me and my siblings when we were younger. I managed to find some fantastic photos of us Playing together, or just obliviously posing as really small baby's and these were helpful in thinking of ways to obtain that unstructured image. I used some black and white photographs of my parents as children because the poses were similar, and I placed them in the background of my shots so that I could out across my family oriented atmosphere and to create the idea that I was shooting the photos in a family home. 

Some of the shots from my shoot 

These black and white photos inspired my idea to make my own photographs black and white aswell. I think that I was successful in creating this photoshoot as the feedback I got from my tutor and peers  showed that I had put across the righ message and that they percueved their own ideas of family life by staying that they were personal images to me, and to me this is a true reflection of who I  am as an individual. 

Accessories week

This week is accessories week and as a starting point to develop ideas for a final outcome , we were required to use an object that was personal to us. I used a small Turkish eye to Inspire my initial thoughts and ideas, as it is something i carry around with me everyday and is meant to send me positive energy. I aim of this task was to study the object in a variety of ways so that I was able to exhaust my ideas and really observe the formation of my object to generate more individual and varied design concepts. I developed quite a spontaneous way of working by finding new ways to study my object, and did this by photocopying to a variety of scales, photographing at obscure angles, and extracting some shapes within the object to create quick sketches and drawings. this method was the most successful in creating multiple designs quickly, as extracting different shapes within the object gave me endless ideas and also formed a less representational image of the original object which resulted in more exacting designs. another process I enjoyed and found effective was cutting away shapes from the photocopied image and collaging then into ideas for finished accessories or possible silhouettes. I think that the majority of these design concepts were successful, because the shapes I extracted within my object were quite fluid and abstract which made designing allot easier and provided me with allot of ideas go develop further. 

Accessories week day 2 

The next stage of accessories week was to further develop my initial design concepts into four refined ideas for a final outcome. I enjoyed this stage the most because I used scanned images of models from magazines to collage my ideas onto, so I was able to see how a possible piece of jewellery would look on an actual figure. The most prominent shape of my object was an overlaid oval shape, and I began by extracting the ovals and cutting them into strips to give thin curved shapes, and this was the shape I selected to generate  my final refined iseas, as it gave me quite an authentic  feeling. I then used this to form a head piece, a shoulder piece and a necklace by draping them around the figure. 

The shape itself can be used in endless ways as its quite versatile and simple, however is extremely effective when layered and used with multiple strips.  I tried to focus on ideas where the accessory actually comes away from the body itself because the shapes I was working with have a natural and free structure, and have this great natural drape across the body. 

I also tried using multiple cut layers to re form the oval shape and this was one of my favourite outcomes vecause i liked how the shapes arch around the body and formed a really strong image. I did explore using the object in its naked form by placing layers of photocopied ovals in places where they naturally hung like round the neck and arms for example, however I found these ideas to be far less effective because the most interesting and intricate  parts of the object were hidden beneath the dominant shape if the oval itself and although these ideas had the most powerful look, I decided not to take this idea further. 

collaging ideas onto a figure template was extreamly useful in terms of being selective with shapes and sillouhtees as it was easier to distinguish what could actually work as a wearable piece and what couldn't, however I also feel as though it gave me a slight inaccurate judgment of how my pieces could possibly come away from the body, so I moved onto working on A mannequin. I used cut out stencils to drape my shapes around  the body and it made me think about what materials I would need in order for something to be able to hold its shape and stand freely. after completing this process for all my possible design ideas I managed to combine all the successful aspects from each design into one final idea. 

Accessories week day three 

My final idea has been concluded and I can now begin to make my wearable accessory! Due to the shape of my final design it was important that I used materials that were able to hold the oval shape and form away from the body itself. To continue with the dark green and navy colour scheme I have adopted throughout my sketchbook, I used green copper wire to structure my accessory with. The wire itself is quite thin so bending it into shape was quick, and it also meant that I could continuously modify and improve the shapes throughout the making process.

To obtain the shape I took different lengths of the wire which I cut to random sizes as I wanted quite a natural effect where shapes form by chance, and then bent them into a circular shape before squeezing the end to form more of anoval  shape. To secure the shape I simply twisted the wire around the bottom of the oval. initially I was going to cover this with paper as it looked quite messy and unnatractive, however as I began to build the accessory up my tutor noticed that the twisted wire is what made the gaent so interesting to look at, and gave have more of a rustic and original edge. 

As I continued to make the shapes I began to layer them on top of one another to form the image of my personal object being the evil eye, and used different size ovals to build up the form. It was difficult for me to understand how it was going to hang on the figure, so I moved into a me equi where I tired to place it around the neck, however it did not hang correctly or got around the neck, so instead I moved it onto the shoulder and this meant that it was able to form away from the body, which I really found more interesting. 

Design development week

Day 1

This week is design development week, and I have enjoyed the demand of quickly coming up with multiple new design concepts. I began by using a single image to inspire my designs, and tried to extract the unusual shapes within it to create new features on my garments. It was extremely difficult to create continuous designs in such a short space of time, as well as thinking about form and composition.

Below are my outcomes from this task and we were required to design using a fine liner. Although this is a medium I not used to sketching in and is something I don't particularly like using, it was a helpful method of learning to design using more confident lines, which resulted in much bolder design concepts. We designed in stages, so I began by focusing on ideas for just collars, then jackets, seams, pockets, and we eventually moved onto designing more refined complete garments, including trousers and skirts, however they were still very fast sketches. I think I was successful in understanding how to come up with more than one design quickly, and to have more confidence in making mistakes and refining them, however I don't think all of my outcomes were a success. I am more drawn to the collar and jacket design concepts. I think that my ideas are more individual and I like how the collars themselves are quite exaggerated, and this was made easier with the use of a fine liner pen as I was able to effectively mark make, however the skirt and trouser designs have no form or silhouette. To improve upon this when sketching in the future I would perhaps focus on drawing the part of the garment that I wish to develop instead of the entire product.

Day 2 

We moved onto the stand for our next stage of design development so that we were able to understand how a garment is likely to drape around the body, and to explore ideas quickly in a more creative way. To create a initial shape which was going to form the basic sillouhette, we used an object that was personal to us, and was interesting to look at and abstract unusual shapes from. I chose the Turkish Eye, as i am half Turkish and the eye is representative of my culture. I began by making very rough sketches of the object, trying my best to really isolate the most interesting parts, and I eventually created a delicate design of interlocking ovals. The idea of this task was to replicate the design ten times and cut them out, so that we could later add them onto other people designs. Before we could do this, we needed to enlarge our initial shape by ten, so that it was big enough to drape around the manikin.

My shape was quite difficult to place on the manekin, as the large ovals bent out of shape and failed to fall flat arounf the figure, however this opened my mind up to new ways of designing, as i realised that garments don't have to entirely lay flat on the body, things can come away from the body itself, lift up, twist around and even fold. Once i draped my shape onto the manikin, we moved onto another manikin of our peers, and began to use one of our ten cut out shapes and added them onto their existing deisgn. The aim of this was to try and build a wearable outfit, so we added our shapes onto areas that didn't have straps, or parts that didn't join entirely around the neck. Once we had done this exercise, we moved back onto our manikins to see how our designs have been changed, then continued the exercise until we developed five or six different design ideas.

I really enjoyed this task, because it forces you to become more creative and to think about how you can add new dimensions to a design. I also really liked seeing how my peers added their paper designs onto mine, as some were forming off the body, interlocking into my designs, and even rising from the shoulder. It was a great way of becoming inspired by each others way of designing and having fun with paper manipulation. 

I have also started to look at existing designers work for inspiration. One of my favourite fashion designers is Valentino, and I have allot of fashion history books based on him! I found inspiration in one of his books called "themes and variations" and I came across a fall/winter 2007 gown that had huge layers of overlapping circular shapes. I found that this really related to my theme, and I have generated ideas for my collection by exaggerating basic circular shapes. I selected three of the most inspirational images and made some sketches to help 

progress my ideas. 

I also looked into 50's Balengiaga and DIor coats which show exaggerate collars and features which will further inspire my collection

Below are some images of how i have begun to develop ideas for my collection. I based my design concepts around oval and large circular overlaying shapes, so i played around with large paper cut outs and pinned them onto manikins in a variety of ways that i can later develop into a final outcome. I then made some  developed sketches underneath to use as alternative ideas to the paper designs on the manikin. 

I carried out the same process with ideas for sleeves, using paper templates and making quick sketches.

Initial idea for final collection and colour ways 

Week one

This week has been fairly challenging for me, as we were required to think about ourselves and who we are as individuals. However, i do feel as though i have been successful in doing this to inspire the initial thoughts for my project. I began by finding ten objects that were significant to me, and that bought certain feelings or emotions from both my past and present. It was interesting to photograph each object individually first, because the different angles and effects used on my camera reflects the mood i get from each piece, and these were then used to make quick sketches.  

I used a 3D mind map where i physically placed my ten objects onto paper, and wrote next to them why each item is meaningful to me. I then extracted key words from that which best described me, and found images which were symbolic of each word in a non representational way. This was a helpful process because i was able  to become inspired by images that initiated from my ten objects, but are now something completely different.