PRACTICE - WEEK 3/4

The past 2 weeks I have been concentrating on getting my garment to the final stage of development. I have learned a lot about my processes, and the time I need to allocate myself in the future.

 This week everything has begun to take shape, and after experiementing with much moire text on the multi-head, I have been able to explore placement of stitch on the garment, by pinning samples to the piece. I'm realising the importance of placement with my stitch work; although I want the piece to be heavily embelished, I do not want my narratives to get lost in an over-busy garment.

In our 4-week review this week the tutors and our peers posed some challenging questions that I must consider before developing my practicew further. Questions concerning where my work sits in a larger context, as well as where I am gathering my research for garments; Laura pointed out that even though I'm producing work for a gallery context, I can't ignore the generations of fashion to come before hand. I think I have to reconsider my research in future projects; if I am to use garments as a vechile for narratives, wear-able or not I can noit ignore the history of a garment, as 'nothing is created in a vaccum'.

Following an impromtu de-briefing with Mark a few days after the review, he questioned if I should even worry about garments at this stage; I don't want to limit myself and waste time of my final year worrying about pattern cutting etc, and following the end of this mini-project I need to focus on generating immense amounts of drawing, and then play with abstract forms and scales which are not neccisarly directed to the body.

WEEK 2 - PRACTICE

Following a busy first week of term, I was eager to get straight back into the swing of practical processes. Utilising my rich supply of illustrations developed from the Rochdale work I developed further over the summer I began to try them out on the multi-head, as I find it is one of my most useful tools in realising my illustrations to the bright, brash energy they were created with.

I was over-all pleased with my stitch-out samples, and have a clear idea of how I want to produce these motifs for the final garment. I have now had a lot more freedom with experimentation of placement on the garment by pinning the stitched-badges to the toile, informing my creative process. 

I am also very aware that these are my first ethos samples for this piece, and I still have a lot of tweeking to do with my designs. Sarah at Touchstones Gallery is excited about the direction of the multi-head work, and is a clear way of me actualising my ideas when communicating with the gallery staff.

Initial multi-head work, subversion of imagery gathered at Rochdale.

 In terms of the development of the 3D shape of the garment, my third toile is starting to take the garment in the direction I want. By cutting the sleeve and reattaching it where the dart is located I have dramatically changed the feel of the garment. It has been transformed from a 'twee' blouse to a contemporary piece of costume, whilst still retaining authenticity to the original source.

Experimenting with my third toile, I am a lot happier with this shape.

Revisiting past samples from the Locating unit helped me solve an issue I was having with the collar. As the body developed, I still felt the dated 'Peter-Pan' collar was dragging it down. I've reinvested the experimentation undertook last year with the pin-tuck stitch and wire to create a fluid structure to the collar. I am very excited for this to develop and have also added pin-tuck wire to the hem of the garment to add versatility to the shape of the piece, which I hope reflects the energy I wish to capture with this project.

Pin-tucking in the collar is giving the piece energy and a contemporary finish.

 I have also been considering further fabrics I can use in the piece. I have contacted bagsoflove.com for fabric samples of my developed digital prints on both suede and satin so I can compare both materials against my multi-head work.

Digital print I have test sampled with Bagsoflove.com, developed from illustration of artificial silk tights.

I still have a lot to work out in terms of the chronology of processes for completing the final piece, as I still have to finalise dying recipes, toile shape, and perfect my multi-head work. I plan to have the toile finalised by the end of the week, so I can concentrate full on my textiles development.