The turbulent century: Social cultural and political change 1920-1990

1900-10: 

Education Welfare, Suffragettes formed in 1903, social status, liberal party, labour party formed, Selfridges founded in 1909, Charles Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret, Bloomsbury Group founded in 1910.

1910-20: 

Titanic 1912,women’s role in society in terms of work and vote, Coco Chanel, clothes became more practical, WW1, Land girls army, Cars and Planes, 1910 sewing machine invented.

1920-30: 

Jazz music, alcohol, cigarettes, Art Deco, Dada, Surrealism, Women given the vote, Flapper girls, women working, 

1930-40: 

First Televisions in homes, Wall street crash, Holiday camps, WW2, Women working in mens roles.

1940-50:

WW2 ends, NHS, Rock and Roll, Austerity Olympic games in Britain.

1950-60: 

Festival of Britain, Queen Elizabeth II, The Cold War, Beatniks, 

1960-70: 

The Beatles, England wins World Cup, Mini-Skirt, Swinging London.

1970-80: 

3-day working week, Vietnam, Thatcher, Andy Warhol, Flares, Free-love, Missoni

1980-90: 

Gay rights, Fall of Berlin Wall, Falklands, Live Aid, Power suits, Club culture

1990-2000: 

Death of Princess Diana, Spice Girls, Designer Logos, Internet, Mobile phones for the masses.

Fashion & Feminism

2013 seemed to be the year of new feminism, so called The fourth wave, with  Laura Bates, 27, and Her Everyday Sexism Project,  Caroline Criado-Perez, 29, leading the campaign for women to feature on bank notes,  the No more page 3 petition, and students began banning summer hit 'Blurred Lines' on many UK campuses - to name just a few campaigns.

Up until 2012, I didn't really think all that much about feminism, but reading Caitlin Moran's 'How to be a Woman' change that.


“These days, however, I am much calmer - since I realised that it’s technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn’t be allowed to have a debate on women’s place in society. You’d be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor - biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men’s card game - before going back to quick-liming the dunny. This is why those female columnists in the Daily Mail - giving daily wail against feminism - amuse me. They paid you £1,600 for that, dear, I think. And I bet it’s going in your bank account, and not your husband’s. The more women argue loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges.” 
― Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman


The Telegraph article, Is Fashion a feminist issue, after all?, discusses that with feminism getting a new 'makeover' this year, is it time that we stopped excusing the fashion industry for glamourising the portrayal of exploitation women and girls?

"So here we are, in an artificially sweaty swamp where S&M is viewed as fashion styling, and "porn-chic" has seeped so far into mainstream culture that tiny girls wear high heels and halter necks and hoards of teenagers go out in clothes that used to be the preserve of prostitutes. It's fashion, isn't it? Ergo, it can't be pornographic.

The really whacked-out aspect of all this is that often the women promoting these images - the editors, the model and photographer agents, the show producers - dress like nuns."

- Lisa Armstrong, Is Fashion a feminist issue, after all?

As the mother of a 10 year-old girl, I am acutely aware of the negative portrayal of women across the media spectrum: 

music videos, celeb mags, fashion adverts/shoots, newspapers, the rise of free internet porn, it's starting to get really scary, It's like we have regressed a half century. Is there any wonder that some young men have such little respect for women, and some young women have little more respect for themselves?  Long live the fourth wave as far as I'm concerned, lets make feminism the new fashion.

Fashion & Psychoanalysis

Another difficult subject tackled in this weeks lecture was psychoanalysis in relation to visual culture. A therapy invented by Sigmund Freud, who believed that people could be cured of their anxiety and depression by revealing their unconscious thoughts, which are suppressed within our dreams and fantasies, and blocked by a natural defence mechanism of the brain.

An even more complicated sub category of this theory is the Oedipus Complex, a highly controversial theory which analyses the sexual desire that a boy might have for his mother read here for a better explanation than I can give!

It also suggests that although men are attracted to women, they also feel threatened by women. This is why the portrayal of women in the media tends to lean towards the idea of women as objects of desire for the male gaze.

Fashion advertisements often use the female form in a submissive way, the woman is attractive, but not threatening as discussed in this article featuring D&G's controversial 2007 ad-campaign.

Hello my name is Paul Smith

This weekend I visited the newly opened Paul Smith exhibition at the Design Museum, London, and I loved it!

Paul is an avid collector, like myself, and his inspiration for his collections come from the objects around him, and the photographs he takes along the way.

I feel so inspired, everything he says in the exhibition just makes so much sense to me, listening to his monologue:

"Don't spend too much time looking at what other people do...try to be your own person"

"Unfortunately a lot of people look but they don't see - so that means absorb when you look at things, it could be graffiti on a wall, it could be an interesting pocket of a postman's trouser, it could be the shadows on a wall, it could be anything"

"I take my camera everywhere, its like a diary - visual diary"

"I travel a lot, and I always observe the way local people dress"

"I love to go out to Portabello road or because I've travelled quite a lot I go to antique markets around the world, and there you can find lots of inspiration"

"Printing the unexpected onto a fabric always is my handwriting. A flower on a fabric on a fabric a photograph that I have taken printed onto a fabric, shadows, I've always loved shadows…venetian blinds with shadows from them, shadows of trees, shadows of people, the shadow of a bicycle"

"Shape and simplicity, proportion are all ingredients that are essential for design today"

"You can look at a beach hut, see the three colours and that can turn into a piece of knitwear"

Sources & further reading:

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/sharpened-lead/2013/nov/20/paul-smith-exhibition-design-museum

http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2013/paul-smith

http://www.businessoffashion.com/2013/11/paul-smith-says-you-need-a-head-that-can-change-hats-every-hour.html

Craft in Fashion

“Craft has never been more important than now, as an antidote to mass production and as a practice in which the very time it takes to produce an object becomes part of its value in a world that often moves too fast.”

Caroline Roux, Acting editor, Crafts magazine

When I visited the Valentino exhibition last year my favourite part of the exhibition was downstairs, where you could look in detail at samples of the different construction techniques used to create certain elements of Valentino's dresses. The workers in the atelier sew everything by hand, spending hundreds of hours on a single piece. So many hours, so many women and they never use a sewing machine, they hand sew everything. Apparently the women were bought  a sewing machine once and it sat in a corner, unused!

Fashion is often seen as frivolous, and with the fast and cheap fashion that is on offer to consumers today, it is easy to forget the huge amount of work that often goes into the couture collections  that march down the runways at the fashion weeks.

The article 'Craft Works' in Vogue, Oct '13, highlights the astonishing amount of work that goes in to producing individual detailing on the garments designed by the likes of Vuitton, Bottega Veneta and Erdem.

Vuitton F/W '13-'14- feathers trimmed with 

scissors and hand-sewn onto tulle 

image via www.vogue.it

Botegga Veneta F/W '13-'14 - Silk and wool 

bonded onto day dress to create watercolour-like patterns

image via www.style.com

Erdem F/W '13-'14 - Window pane tweed woven with neon PVC 

and ostrich feathers attached to thread narrow enough to go

 through a loom.

image via www.style.com

I am 'guilty' myself of buying cheap fashion, and I believe there is a place for it, as I think that fashion should be accessible for all walks, not just the elite. However, I do place great importance on craft in fashion - luxurious fabrics and beautiful artisanal details elevate a garment into the realms of a piece of art, not just to treasure but to showcase on oneself.

Sustainability in Fashion

I few years ago I read and article about the ethical fashion designer Orsola de Castro. I can't remember where it was, but I do remember how interesting and inspiring it was.

A few years back speedo designed a super-duper, hi-tech, professional swim suit, but it wasn't long before athletes where banned from wearing it in competitions, as it was deemed to give the wearer an unfair advantage. So Speedo had a massive problem, what where they to do with all these swimsuits they had manufactured, but had become unsaleable? Landfill?

This is where Orsola de Castro stepped in. Castro started her London based fashion label, From Somewhere, in 1997. Initially she breathed new life into second-hand clothes that would have been destined for landfill. For example, creating something beautiful and unique from a moth-eaten cashmere cardi, by hand crocheting around the holes. But in 2001, on a visit to a knitwear factory in Italy (that manufactures for designers such as Yves St Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld) she realised that with the huge amount off offcuts on the floor, she could make a whole collection from scratch, not just the one-offs she had been making previously.

Speedo gave 5,000 of these obsolete swimsuits to Castro and she set about creating them into a 10-peice collection of cocktail dresses. The collection was launched at london fashion week and Selfridges, Luxe.com promptly placed an order for S/S '11.

I think it is a very slow process, but I do do believe that the fashion industry is becoming more conscious of sustainability and ethical manufacturing, with big companies such as H&M, M&S and Tesco working towards improving ethics. Personally, I do shop at Primark on occasion, but I also believe very strongly that it is important for us to try and change the way the industry thinks. It's not about all designers recycling and upcycling, but it is their duty to find a use for their waste textiles, or to give it to someone who will find a use for it, it shouldn't just go up in smoke.



Sources & further reading:

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG7986905/Prince-of-Waless-Start-initiative-rubbish-designs.html

http://www.designweek.co.uk/analysis/when-design-in-sport-goes-too-far/3034422.article

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8254833/Sri-Lankan-upcycling-factory-makes-waves-in-the-fashion-industry.html

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG7205477/Orsola-de-Castro-The-ethical-fashion-designer.html

http://www.ecouterre.com/fashion-world-changer-orsola-de-castro-speaks-out-on-textile-waste/

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/06/ethical-high-street-clothes-supply-chain-bangladesh

Fired Up Portmeirion Competition 2013

During our second year, there is a strong focus on us entering industry based competitions. Some of the competitions have been worked into our modules, but we also have to enter at least two independently.

I have just submitted my design for the Fired Up 2013 competition run by Portmeirion. My design was inspired by the photos I took inside the beautiful Cloud Forest conservatory during my visit to The Gardens by the Bay in Singapore.

I really loved the juxtaposition of the organic foliage and the harsh geometric lines of the hard landscaping within the conservatory and wanted to recreate that in my design. I initially began working with ink to sketch from my photos, but decided that using hand cut paper helped me to reproduce the clean lines of the landscaping the silhouettes that the light through the leaves. I'm really apply with my finally design, It gives a nod to the sketchy black lines of 1950s print design, whilst looking contemporary. I can see it sitting happily on an Ercol dining table in a mid-century inspired home.

image via Ercol.com

Club to Catwalk @ V&A

The Club to Catwalk exhibition at the V&A didn't inspire me hugely, although it was really interesting to see how the the 1980s youth subcultures had expressed themselves and made their own clothes, and either became fashion designers themselves, or inspired the trends that made it onto the catwalk.

This quote from Vivienne Westwood, really rings true to me. I love looking to the past for design inspiration, my challenge is to try and incorporate the traditional elements whilst giving them a contemporary edge.

'Dragons' print dressing gown, Georgina Von Etsdorf, 1984

I adore the print on this dressing gown, it looks like it was inspired by the avant garde, soviet constructivist prints of the 1920s-30s.

I have always admired Paul Smith use of colour and the unexpected secrets his clothes hide. His method of teaming an otherwise somber navy suit with a bright printed lining, or hiding a 1950s style pin-up girl print on the underside of a turned back cuff, make his clothes wearable for the office, but desirable to the person who has a fun side.

After I finished with the Club to Catwalk exhibition I had a look at the permanent fashion exhibition. As well as historical detail, I get really inspired by traditional costume from other cultures. The turn of the century saw a taste for the orient in Britain, influencing designers such as Paul Poiret and Liberty & Co.

Printed silk evening dress, Charles James, 1938.

 One of the most amazing designers I have come across during research for several project is Charles James (1908-1978),  an american couturier the construction of his garments are exciting, interesting and beautiful, and they still look contemporary today, some 60 years on.

Coat, Yohji Yamamoto (born 1943) A/W '04-'05

I think that Yamamoto has successfully taken inspiration from a military great coat, but given a contemporary edge with the use of oversized pockets, not only stylish, but practical too.

After the V&A I took the opportunity to take a trip down Berwick street and have a look in the fabric shops for inspiration for my new studio module. Although I haven't finalised my colour palette, it was good to see the huge range of fabrics available in London, as Colchester and Braintree's offerings on the fabric front can be a touch limiting, and buying fabric online can sometimes be tricky, as it is difficult to show a true colour on a computer screen and you can't feel the texture and weight of a fabric, which is always important.

Semiology

The first lecture of the year 2 has raised it's ugly head and as set the tone for the year ahead - complicated! It was quite a lot to deal with on the first day back, and quite a lot of it went over my head, but I think the main things that I came out of with was this:

Semiotics is the study of signs, A sign is a recognisable combination of a signifier with a particular signified.  

•  signified: the concept a tree
•  signifier: the sound or spoken word 'tree'

• All things have a symbolic meaning - things or images are the signs.
• Culture is the giving and taking of meaning between people - people create meanings.
• Words change between languages and cultures, but concepts remain the same.
• The meaning of a word is dependent on the word being in a system. e.g. traffic lights: Red means stop in a set of traffic lights, but only because it is in a system next to amber and green - it only means stop when in this system. Out of this system the meaning disappears.

Following the lecture, we were able to put this theory into practise in relation to fashion. In groups we had to deconstruct the a fashion magazine advert featuring a white shirt, each group had a different ad, and the task was to identify what connotations the advert was trying to project to the reader about the shirt/brand through both subtle or overt signs used in the advert, including: written text, pose of model, surroundings. It was surprising how different the connotations were, for the same item of clothing - a white shirt, a classic wardrobe staple.

Warner Textile Archive Fair 2013

I am so glad I managed to make it to the Warner Textile Archive Fair on sunday. It really was good value for money. I managed attended all the free talks featured here which were really interesting and inspiring, and for £2 extra I managed to get into the archive store and see some textiles that are not usually on show in the museum. I was also excited to find out that the next exhibition at the archive will be devoted to many costumes and clothing they have in the collection. With my ticket I also got free admission to an exhibition at braintree museum called 'the student textile design challenge'. Over 240 design students from across Britain and Ireland were given a copy of a design from the Warner Archive, from which, they had to draw inspiration, and produce a mixed media textile sample in response.

Indigo and shibori 

 smocking

For more information about what went on at the fair you can read the archive's press release here.