Sunday, 27 September 2015

BRADFORD TEXTILES : WEEK 1

Anemone, Amsterdam zoo
Komodo Dragon, Amsterdam Zoo.
Inspiration Board.

During the summer I stayed in the beautiful city Amsterdam for a long weekend, which is where I got my initial inspiration to start my summer work. During my time there, I visited the local zoo where I became fascinated with the reptiles and underwater creatures. It was the textures and forms of these animals that drew my attention to their amazing detail. Straight away I could see myself creating interesting, textured samples from this research. My aim for this project is to create samples using detailed embroidery and embellishment, giving my designs a lovely finished detail.

Women's fashion is the direction I'd like to take with this project, as I've been researching embroidery designers such as Jenny Packham, Neil Grotzinger, Mary katrantzou, Georges Chakra. There designs are very textured and detailed, and I feel my samples are designed in a similar way to these practitioners. 



Over the summer I've been reading magazines and researching on-line popular fashion designers and getting myself familiar with trend forecasting. This is the first time where my audience has been fashion, and not interior so I've had to familiarise myself with this context.


Visual Research.


Normally when I start a project I begin drawing first and sampling second, but I wanted to try something different this time. I began sampling first, getting hands on with the fabrics and creating my own handmade embellishments. Since the last unit, I wanted to develop my beading work so I took this opportunity to do so. After creating a batch of samples, this led me onto drawing. I found this method better for me because I like to work in a textured way and need to surround myself with materials first. Looking at a white piece of paper seems daunting when I have no samples to work from.

Having had this taste of embellishment and hand stitching, I'm finding it very therapeutic. It may be a time consuming process, but it's definitely worth it when the final outcome is finished. Again, referring back to the first sample that I made, I really feel I could push this on in the future, I feel it has a lot of potential as its original.


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