Fashion Presentation

Theme Development

Enclosure

At first enclosure didn't appeal to me at all, but once I started my research it immediately caught my attention. I started by looking at different ways of being enclosed or restricted.
I then narrowed it down to a few; the images that I researched for barbwire and different types of walls or fences. I decided to go with these ideas as it made me feel enclosed in a space looking at the images of barbwire etc. Also it had a sense of being kept out which interests me.

Electric
I immediately think of pop art the 80's and 90's so thats the route I decided to go down. Bright colours, 'in your face' images and text interested me. So I kept looking up pop art from those decades mostly, and it was Andy Warhol's prints that I decided to stay focusing on. The quirky images and colouring scream 'electric' to me.

Decay
Rotting wood,corrosion, erosion, rust are all things that I imagine when I think of decay. I loved the colours of rust, the burnt oranges, reds, browns and the texture of the wood. The brittleness and vitreous of the wood crumbling off is what I decided to focus on. I took images of diifferent woods, one in particular I really like the way it shows the different layers of paint etc.

Tribal
I first researched the different types of tribes, deciding on focusing on African tribes gave me so much to work with, colours, textures etc. I looked at the individuals within a tribe but I decided to gather more research on voodoo and the rituals involved. Voodoo masks became the focusing point in this theme.

Memories
Memories was the theme that jumped out at me and caught my attention straight away.I think of war times, WWI, WWII etc. The 1920's is my favourite era so I started looking at different images from that time.  Looking at things that can hold memories or hold things that can trigger memories lead me to antiques, treasure boxes, trinket boxes, lockets. I visited an antique shop and I found so much to work with. General antiques and jewellery dating back to the 1830's.

Fabric Manipulation
Gathering
Consists of small folds or puckers made by pulling tight a thread in a line of stitching; creates ruffles.

Quilting
Quilting is a sewing method used to join two or more layers of material together to make a thicker padded material. The materials are attached together in a series of seam diagonals to form a diamond pattern, however a stitched design of any kind can be used.

Folding/ Origami
The goal of this art is to transform a flat sheet of material into a finishes sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques, such as the use of cuts or glue are not considered to be origami.

Pleating
Pleating is a fold in material made by doubling the material upon itself and then pressing or stitching it into place. The pleating both stiffens and gives volume/ structure to the material.

Twisting
To twist a material is to alter its shape, by turning the ends in opposite directions, so that the parts previously in the same straight line and plane are located in a spiral curve.

Boning of Fabric
Adding steel, plastic bones to the inside of a fabric to create structure and a rigid shape. Ridgelene is the most common.

Knitwear Techniques
Ribs
A rib knit is a garment produced using a style of knitting pattern which yields a distinct vertically ridged pattern. Created by alternating strips of stockinette stitch and reverse stockinette.

Moss stitch
 Works on multiples of two stitches; Rows 1 and :Knit one; purl across. Rows 3 and 4: Purl one; Knit across. Repeat these four rows for pattern.

Loop Stitch
Any sewing stitch formed of connected loops. The loop stitch is a crochet stitch that creates soft, bulky loops of yarn.

Cables

Cable is a style of knitting in which textures of crossing layers are achieved by permuting stitches. For example, given four stitches appearing on the needle in the order ABCD, one might cross the first two (in front of or behind) the next two, so that in subsequent rows those stitches appear in the new orderCDAB.

Ladder Stitch

A vertical stitch using four pleats. It gives the effect of steps on a ladder.

Ridged Eyelet Stitch

Eyelet patterns generally have fewer openings than out and out knitted lace patterns; and eyelet patterns are characterized by small openwork motifs distributed over a solid stockinette( or other closed-stitch pattern) fabric.

Simple Lace

Lace knitting is a style of knitting characterized by stable "holes" in the fabric arranged with consideration of aesthetic value.

Tubular Knitting

Circular knitting or knitting in the round is a form of knitting that creates a seamless tube. 

Medallion ( Five needle knitting)

Medallion knitting produces flat knitted fabrics that are circular or polygons using a technique similar to the crochet of doilies, by progressively increasing or decreasing the radius.

Increasing/ Decreasing/ Shaping

Increasing: This can be done anywhere in a row, this is where the increase is made on the first or last stitch in a row.

Decreasing: This is the shaping that makes your work narrower.

Striping & Intarsia

Intarsia is the term used to identify a knitting project using blocks of colour where the yarn is not stranded or carried across the back.

fashion...

Using the heavy weight materials influenced my work alot.. I really liked the shapes that I was getting from them..
I really enjoyed the process of creating my final line up...

I also found two designers in particular that inspired me.. Viktor and Rolf..

and Issey Miyake...

I felt they reaaly related to my designs and ideas.. I loved researching their work and I found them very helpful for my final line up.. :)

fashion...

So these are my pics of working with the light weight and heavy weight materials.. I was expecting much shape from the light weight fabric( I chose lace) but I was from my heavy weight( heshian). I loved working on the mannequin and I found my heavy weight fabric so much better to work with.. you could shape it in a general way but it sort of took its own shape as it so much tougher than the rest. I think thats what I liked most about the heshian, you didn't really know how it was going to turn out.

 heavy weight materials...

light weight materials...

fashion..... :)

Since my last blog I've been drawing out my designs and shapes on my croquis, exploring different ways reseaching designers for inspiration etc. Over rag week i completed my colour studies, croquis sheets and experimented more with my paper shapes on the mannequin. :)

Today(mon) we started working with our fabrics.. light weight, medium weight and a heavy weight so I had already gotten my light weight here in Limerick.. the curtain lining then at home in donegal I got the other two.. a black out curtain lining and heshian as my heavy weight. Even by cutting out the shapes I knew there was going to be a huge difference in using the different fabrics on the mannequin. I started of with the curtain lining, just making up more shapes etc.. Again I really liked working on the mannequin especially with the fabrics. I'll post pictures tonight of my work.. and I'm also going to try out my other fabrics tonight so I'll post pics of them too.. :D

medium weight materials

fashion cont.......

For the past two days it has mostly been working with our croquis using our shapes on mannequins etc.. on wed we draped fabrics on the mannequin to help with our drawing skills of fabrics etc.. I really enjoyed this and I found it definately helped with my sketchbook. In the afternoon we spent time looking at different sketchbooks looking at alternitive ways to create them, to personalise them etc.. really enjoyed this too. It was a big help as i found myself looking at my sketchbook and I thought it didn't have a structure or plan.
Thurs I went up town to buy my fabrics..I bought the curtain lining but I wasn't sure on which fabric was moost suited to my shapes for the medium weight and heavy weight.. I like the idea of using leaterette but I'm not sure it will work with my shapes. :)

fashion elective.... :D

We started fashion with picking an object inspired from product design or the natural world... mines is fish. It wasn't the first thing that jumped out at me but I thought there would be endless possibilities for shapes, designs etc. :) The first day was quite hectic and fast paced but I really enjoyed it.. especially how we had to examine our sketches for shapes.
Today(the second day) we spent cutting out our favourite shapes and arranging them in different ways on the mannequins, this was most definately my favourite part because you really got to see how the shapes affected the body and how the proportion of the shapes could make the body look differently. In the afternoon we spent time looking at colour and how it can affect the mood of the design etc. It was a reaaly good day, fast paced but you gained experience with working with the mannequin and learnt about colour.