Culture

 (Week one)

Our final project is 'Culture'. Culture is such a broad subject and is far beyond what we stereotypically assume culture is. Culture can be about music or film, its not just based around a country or religion.
The idea of this project is to choose two contrasting cultures to inspire your concepts for the project. This could be Hindu and the 60's for example. 
At first I found it really difficult to think of two cultures I have an interest in, or any that have a big enough contrast. I didn't want to choose something that was overly obvious, but at the same time it had to be something that I take inspiration from.

The easiest way to begin this project was to visit the library and just have a look to see if there was a culture I was unfamiliar with that I actually found really inspiring. The final outcome of this project is a final collection based around my two chosen cultures, and by the end of today we needed to have two concept boards, showing our initial concepts.
I have always had a strong interest in the French revolution, and Mary Antoinette. I love the extravagance of wealthy women's clothing at that time. I was inspired by their rich use of fabrics, and elaborate detailing. I have always appreciated fine detailing and, and I love the embroidery, ruffled lace and the corset shaped bodice to the gowns. I started to take the detailing and silhouette of women s clothing during the French revolution as my starting point, and created an initial concept board highlighting the intricate bodices, and fine detailing within their garments at that time.

The French revolution has such an old fashioned, traditional style that I need to contrast it with something completely 'out there' and modern. I found it really hard to come up with a second culture, and my tutors continued to suggest I look at a current band or a type of rock era to make a strong contrast. I personally don't have any interest in those types of cultures, so I started to think of a culture that has bold colours, striking patterns and really prominent themes, which is the complete opposite to the reserved style of the French Revolution.
I took the idea of looking at American Indians and their tribes. I really love the earthy Aztec patterns, and striking colours. They are also wearing clothing  that show they are less privileged then the women of that time in the French Reveloutin. I also really love the feathered head dress, and really elaborate accessories, which I hope to incorporate into the silhouettes of the clothing during the French Revolution.
I merged my two initial concept boards together, so that I can start to think about how I am going to collaborate the two together.

I started to immediately develop my ideas, and I did find it quite difficult to merge my two cultures together straight away, as I didn't want to work on them too separately. I decided that the easiest way for me to work is to use one or two images from my concept board, and move them forward. I made some quick sketches from my research images first, and then began to develop my ideas from that. I focused on the corset detailing from the French revolution first, and tried to incorporate some patterns from an amazing American Indian pot I found.

I started to make lots of rough sketches focusing mainly on the corset shape that I would like to take from the French Revolution. I tried to steer away from making my designs look too much like a costume, and make them actually wearable. I focused on adapting the corset shapes in as many ways i could, so i used it on the bodice of jackets, shirts, tops, and even the detailing into the pockets of shots just to really exhaust my idea. I find sketching out designs from a few reference images a great way to get as many ideas down as I can in a short amount of time. I should be able to develop my ideas allot quicker and work towards a more accomplished final outcome.

It was really hard for me to include patterns from the American Indian culture into my roughs, as roughs don't always include allot of detail, so as my sketches moved forward i included some more images of the patterns I would like to include onto small areas of my design, and represented them with harsher pen marks.

As a way of starting to incorporate the American Indian patterns into my designs more, I started to cut and stick some of the patterns onto my illustrations. I made some really rough sketches of the more defined silhouettes that I wanted to take from the French Revolution, and then photocopied some really stunning patterns that I found in a book on Native American tribes to add into my designs.

I drew out some of the most inspiring detailing, shapes and outlines from the French Revolution. I really liked the elegant drapery, fitted corsets, and the pleating. I then thought that there was quite an interesting link between the fringing from the Native American costumes and the pleating I sketched from a Mary Antoinette gown. I started to collage some of the Native American patterns onto my sketches, and I really loved the contrast between the two.

It was an effective way of seeing what combinations work, and which didn't, so as I progress my designs further i should have a clearer idea on how I can collaborate my two cultures together.

Week 2/3

These last two weeks I wanted to really begin to refine my ideas allot better. It has been a constant struggle throughout this project to combine my two cultures together. I wanted to continue to focus on looking at the detailing and strong silhouette of the women during the French Revolution, but still incorporate patterns from the Native American tribes.

I love the bold use of colour in American Indian patterns. They are quite earthy tones but at the same time they bring allot of luminosity which I like. I think that to move my ideas forward I needed to start brining colour and pattern into my work more.

I started to refine my roughs by really thinking about the right structure I wanted to acheive. Although I was looking at the corset and tight silhouette from mary Antoinette, I didn't want my designs to look to much like a costume. So i decided to take the tight structure and adapt it to modern clothing today. This collection has to be wearable, and it is important for me not to get stuck in the old fashioned style of the French Revolution, because it is not marketable today.

I started to really contour my designs to the body, so showing how I would incorporate princess seams, and a really fitted bust and bodice area. I wanted to highlight the intricate detailing by designing some intricate straps and just making my designs really feminine and beautiful.
When people think of Mary Antoinette and the way women dressed at that time, they may think of the large ruffled skirts and frilly sleeves. This is something I definatly tried to steer away from so that I can take a more modern approach to design.

Continuing to look at colour I designed some more roughs using a bright orange pen to scribble in some areas of colour. I know that for my finals I will be working with allot of bright tones, and so this was just an experiment to see how my designs are going to look with these sort of luminous tones. I did quite like some of my roughs, however I still felt like my work had a bit too much of a costume element to it. I was really struggling to find a balance between modern and traditional, so moving onto draw on a figure may help me, as roughs are not always that realistic,

Now that I am moving towards the end of this project I need to think about my final collection. I made the decision to incorporate colour and pattern into one. So I can take my inspiration from the American Indian's strong patterns and bold colours and combine them into one. This way I am working towards a more accomplished idea, and not using colour and pattern separately which made my previous designs more unsuccessful.
I have the same problem as before when working with pattern, as I am still not that confident with photoshop which slowed down my process. I found some really beautiful patterns in a  book in the libary. I was attracted to the patterns within Native American pottery, and accessories aswell as their tribal clothing, so I scanned in the patterns and enlarged them on the photocopier to capture more detail.

I started to draw out some of my final designs, trying to capture the structured corset shape as much as possible.  I used a fine liner so that it was easier for me to cut and stick my patterns onto my designs. I know that this is a much longer process, however it does enable me to work intuitively and think about where I might like to add pattern onto my garments.

I traced out the shape from my design, and then traced that same shape onto my pattern that i had printed, so i could easily cut the shape out and stick it onto my design. I tried to be quite selective with my approach to placing the pattern onto my garments. I focused on creating pattern onto a single part of the bodice, or just the straps, and even just the inside of the leg. I wanted to enable the patterns to be appreciated, but not take all the attention away from the designs. I tried to combine two different patterns together that complimented each other in terms of colour, so yellow and red worked quite nicely.

I worked in the same process for all of my final designs, and I think I was successful in designing a wearable, unique collection. I was able to take something we would now consider to be undesirable like the ruffled ball gown, and 'apache' style ponchos, and turned them into something suitable for todays market. I do however, continue to have the same problems with my final illustartions. I feel as though my message isn't being put across well enough, as the colours and shapes are not always exact to how they are inteneded. This can easily be overcome if I start to improve my photoshop skills and really experiment more with the software so that I can show more clearly fabrication and detailing.