Critical and contextual presentation

Some of us gave our presentations today, including myself. I think is went quite well, but I am not expecting an amazing mark for it. I decided not to use notes, as Gill had recommended, instead I used the text and pictures on slide to prompt me, which hopefully made me interact with the audience more and made my presentation more engaging.

Next week there will be more presentation from the rest of the group, and then we have the Easter break, so we will have to wait until the following week until we get given feedback and our marks for the presentation. In the meantime I really now need to start writing my essay, as it is due to be handed in on 19th April. A month sounds like a long time, but my family and I are off to Corfu for a week during the holidays which will cut into it a bit, I hope I don't procrastinate too much! I am really not look forward to writing this essay, I think that essay writing is probably me weakest subject and I am worried that it will drag down my overall grade for the whole year.

Critical & contextual presentation preparation

Next wednesday we have to present to the class our findings from our research for our chosen essay question, focusing on one or two particular artists of designers to use as an example. My problem is that during my research on 'How is the role of the designer different to the role of the artist' I keep being directed towards ideas that would work better with another essay question that we have been offered to use: 'Is fashion an art? Why has it been increasingly viewed as such in the postmodern art world?'. So it was helpful to get some feedback from Gill today, she said that although I have already submitted my synopsis for the artist/designer question, I could still change the essay question at this point.

I now face the prospect of researching and creating a powerpoint presentation on the new essay in under a week (along with all the rest of my work!). Luckily, like I mentioned before my original research has turned up a number of articles that relate to the 'is fashion an art? question. I just need to relate it to the postmodern art world in some way. I have a number of designers in mind to base the presentation on, including Elsa Schiaparelli, Hussein Chayalan, Vivian Westwood and Alexander McQueen, but will narrow it down to one after some further research.

Art and aesthetics in fashion society

Fashion and art seem closer together than at anytime before. The arguments against fashion as an art is that the fashion industry is inseparable from commerce, and in contrast, art is a principle ruled by a non-commercial spirit.

Of course fashion is commercial, especially at the lower end of the scale. It is not about creating something beautiful, money no-object, but about sales and profits. But has the art world not become commercialised too? Art licensing has become a multi million pound industry, if you walk into a museum gift shop, how many products or gifts can you buy featuring a reproduction of your favourite piece from the latest exhibition?

Andy Warhol Mug

In contrast, what is the difference between one of Alexander McQueen's 2007 'Real Flower Dress' and Damien Hirst's use of live butterflies in his exhibition at the Tate Modern last year, titled: 'In and Out of Love'?

An English country garden-style dress, 

made entirely of fresh flowers, 

from the Alexander McQueen S/S '07 collection.

 Butterflies feasting on fruit 

as part of Damien Hirst's work 'In and Out of Love'. 

Fashion has increasingly become the focus of many museum exhibitions in recent years. In may 2012, the Met's exhibition 'Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations' even focused directly on the argument of 'Is fashion art?' between the two fashion designers.

The 'Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations' 

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fashion & Textile Processes - Hand in

I have come to the end of semester one and have handed in my first main studio module, I feel like I can breath a sigh of relief! As I have mentioned before, the more construction I do, the more confident I get at it. I am really starting to feel that it might be the route I decide to focus on in my final years.

Although I enjoy printing and knit as well (when it is going right!) I find these processes the hardest. I think that I will prefer screen printing more, when I am allowed to work with exposed screens (rather than just hand cutting stencils or masking off screens), enabling my prints to be more intricate. As for knit, it is still something I am struggling to get my head around. My visual research on Pinterest has revealed some really exciting knitwear designs, but my lack of understanding of how knitting 'works' is standing in the way of my progress. I can do all of the techniques I have been shown during this semester, but as soon as I drop a stitch or something goes wrong, I don't know how to fix it, which is really frustrating! It seems that the other other students who know how to hand knit have a better understanding of machine knitting. I have tried to teach myself to hand knit, but I haven't had much luck, I find crocheting easier.

I like using embroidery in my work to add texture. I love the intricacy and detail of hand embroidery, but it is very time consuming to embroider even a relatively small area of fabric. So free-machine embroidery seems to be a more appropriate method to add texture to a larger area, and I think it has a more modern look. Using the embellisher machine was completely new to me, and I had fun discovering a few different effects you can create with it, but I decided not to use this process in my final samples, as I didn't think it fitted in with the architectural and geometrical theme of my collection.

The silhouette of my collection was heavily inspired by the mid to late 50s costumes of the BBC drama, The Hour. After further research, I discovered that this period was the advent of fashion designed specifically for the professional woman in the workplace. So with that in mind, I made the decision to design my collection as a range of separates, for the professional working woman of today. This decision also informed my colour palette and fabric choices. I think the traditional work-wear colours of black and grey are given a fresh modern edge by the pops of sunflower yellow and colbalt blue. I also wanted to give the collection a luxurious feel, which is why I choose to work with the natural fibres of wool and silk, as apposed to manmade synthetics that don't always feel as nice.

My final collection illustration created on photoshop


*EDIT* 19/2/13: I got an overall grade of 74% for this module, which is classed as a 1st!

PDP and Critical & Contextual Research - Module review

So far I think I am managing to demonstrate my awareness of a wide range of social, political, environmental and aesthetic contexts within art and design in this blog, through my written and visual research, and my reflections on our weekly lectures.

Although I attend all of the lectures and studio sessions, unless I am ill of course, I do struggle to keep my blog up to date on a weekly basis. Which means I end up with a bit of a back log that I have to wade through all in one go. At this point in time, there are a few responses to my lectures that I haven't done yet, which I will aim to do over the semester break. My I tend to put off my journalling, especially when I have a hand in for another module coming up, as that take priority. I need to find a way to keep myself up to date, maybe I should allocate a couple of days a week that I must update my blog?

We also have to write a synopsis of our essay over the semester break. I have decided to opt for the essay question: "How is the role of the designer different to the role of the artist?". I have chose this question as it has been a talking point within our seminar sessions with Gill, and there have been some interesting points raised which I would like to explore.

Fashion construction - Hand in

I finally handed in my first module for this year today! Before this fashion construction module I had attended two pattern cutting sessions in Yr 0 (my foundation year), but I didn't have a lot of confidence in my abilities in pattern cutting and construction. However, fashion construction is a skill that I am really keen to master, and so I made every effort to attend 100% of the studio sessions, so as not to fall behind.

One really important thing that I have learnt, is that whilst I am learning new skills, it helps to document each step I make in the studio with note taking and photos, which I then type up at home. Although this slows me down initially, it provides me with a reminder of how I did a particular step, as construction can be complicated and can turn out wrong if done in the wrong order. Not only can I refer back to my own notes and instructions at a later date, but the process of note taking and then re-typing helps me to commit the stages to memory, therefore benefitting my independent learning.

Having a young child I find it difficult to manage my study time at home, so my attendance during the studio sessions is really important to me. If I missed one, I know I would quickly fall behind and struggle to catch up. Also because I attended all of the studio sessions, I was able to explore and record all the techniques and processes taught on this module which I will be able to refer to throughout my course.

I really enjoy the neatness of pattern cutting and construction. I prefer to be slower, accurate and methodical, and get it right first time. When I rush things I quite often make mistakes which take more time to go back and fix. I think my finished shift dress toile reflects the time and effort I took over it.

One of my favourite parts of this module was researching historical designers and some of the beautiful garments that they designed and created. I am particularly enthused in how design elements such as interesting pockets, collars, cuffs and fastenings can make a garment look really special. I have been a bit of a Pinterest addict for a while know, but now I have boards for these specific construction details which I will continue to add to after this module is finished. Combining and adapting these design elements will provide a wealth of inspiration for my own designs throughout this course. I think that owing to the research I did on these design elements, I was able to design a shift dress that was relatively simple to make, but included some interesting construction details.

 pleated and piped collar

pleated piped peplum with pockets into waist seam 

*EDIT*  25/1/13:  I received a grade of 70% overall for this module which is classed as a 1st!

Art must hang! Must art hang?

This lecture discussed the way that artists and curators display art, and how displaying art has changed over history from the first cave paintings on a vertical wall, to the walls of a museum gallery, to temporary works of art outside in the open air.

It was interesting to learn about the role of a curator. Funnily enough, the word curator was first used in english to describe people in charge of a lunatic asylum! Today we understand the word 'curator' describes the role of a person who decides how to display collections in museums and galleries. Actually, if you think about it, a curator is a kind of artist - how they decide to display work will give meaning.

I was reminded of the artist Peter Blake and an exhibition, featuring his collections of objects from childhood, I saw at the Holborne Museum in Bath in 2011, called 'A Museum for Myself'. He uses the method of curation in his work as an artist.

Elvis Shrine No.1, Peter Blake, 2001

It is also interesting to look at the role of curation in fashion. The way clothes are displayed for the consumer in high street shops are entirely different from the way that displayed in high end designer stores.

a customers photo of the inside of a Primark Store 

 the inside of the Prada store in Paris

Fashion Week Group Presentations

One word to some up our group presentations - embarrassing!

the week before last we watched the presentations for Milan and New York, and last week it was our turn with London and the other group who did Paris. All of the groups had a t least 2-3 people within their group who where absent on presentation day, and some people had had trouble logging into their Pebblepad account to upload their work so they had to use a word document to support their presentation.

I think that most people find giving presentations incredibly nerve racking and embarrassing, but I think that was made worse as none of the groups had got together to practise their presentations, and it showed.

I think because we had all just met each other and our teams where selected at random, we all held back a bit, I know I did. I volunteered as a 'team leader' with Becky because nobody else wanted to do it, but I did not want to start the term bossing everyone around and telling them what to do. As the oldest student on our course, a mother, an ex-learning support assistant and a generally bossy person, I know I can be prone to playing mother duck. But I didn't want to rub anyone up the wrong way at the start of our next three years together, as I know that first impressions can stick.  I set up a Facebook group to help our group to communicate outside of uni, but nobody really used it, including myself. So as a team leader I failed miserably.

Having said that, I believe that the research that I carried out and the work that I uploaded onto Pebblepad was of a good standard. I read through several different show reports and websites for information on each designer's collection, and used this as well as my own opinion on each collection to form my webfolio page. I also picked images that illustrated some specific pieces in the collection that I wrote about, so I was able to point these out to the audience during the presentation. I also researched and uploaded the Overview page for London Fashion Week. I made notes to refer to during my presentation, rather than just reading off of the webfolio page, and made an effort to make eye contact with the audience. Owing to the feedback I received, I believe this helped to make my presentation more engaging to the audience.

I think that doing a group project together at the start of the term is a good way to get us all to interact and mix as a group, and I think that is achievable within the structure of the teaching environment. But after all the initial flurry of work and good intentions, and because we knew that it wouldn't be formally assessed, for a lot of students it got placed on the back-burner and forgotten about until d-day approached, and by then it was too late.

Photoshop workshop

I am so glad that managed to attend the Photoshop sessions with Tim, the new skills I have learnt have been invaluable. I have used Photoshop before and have a basic understanding of how it works, but the skills I had leant up until now have been 'self taught' with tutorials on the internet and general fiddling about until I get the results that I am after.

Now I can do thing that I could't do before and have got faster at things that used to take me ages beforehand. I now know the proper way to add my textile designs to illustrations and can create a pattern repeat from my scanned in samples, alter there colour and change there scale. I have also learnt how to create a displacement map (a way to make your print follow the curves and folds of a garment).

One of my samples, scanned in and turned into a repeat pattern

Using Photoshop is such a fantastic skill to learn, not only does it open up lots of possibilities for illustration and digital print design, but is almost an essential requirement for most jobs in the fashion and textiles industry. I need to continue to practise these new skills that I have learnt on a regular basis, so I don't forget them.

Art and Politics

Modern art alined itself with socialism. at the time, socialism was thought to be a higher form of capitalism where an individual could better themselves, leaving behind our animal existance and freedom. Art and socialism lived together and shared the struggle. The revolutionary avant-gardes wanted to bring art and life together, but to Trotsky (a russian marxist) that would be to lose a political weapon. Art was not just about politics but art could transform the viewer from being passive to being a producer of meaning.

'Am I not a man and a brother' 

Josiah Wedgewood Medallion

Via here

This reminded me of something my dad told me about recently. In the eighteenth century Josiah Wedgewood designed and manufactured a ceramic medallion to spread the politic message to abolish slavery and to encourage people to share their ideals with others. It depicted a shackled slave on his knees, inscribed with "Am I not a man and a brother" and on the reverse " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".

The medallions were very popular during the period and they actually became a real fashion statement. Ladies would have the medallion mounted into a bracelet or wore them as hat pins and pendants. The image was also printed on plates and boxes and other pieces. It seems a little unexpected that something quite so frivolous as jewellery could carry such an important political message. But Wedgewood had the foresight to use fashion to promote the cause of abolishing slavery and creating equal rights for enslaved people, in the same way as art is used to highlight political messages. (source)