FMP Final Post...

We finally come to the end of what seems an era as it is the day before hand in of my final major project at university and then no more studying... until  start my Masters in a few years. It seems to have been quite a long and tiring year but hopefully it'll all be work it.
The resulting samples, i have put into a few visualizations which have come out fairly well...

Reaching the end of the course... FMP Post 5

 3 weeks until the final hand in and it's all over for the free life at university. Just handed in the final section of my dissertation, the 'critical reflection' which for me seemed harder than i thought, it really made me think about everything i was doing throughout the whole 3 years on this course. However, it really tested how much depth i could go into about my work. But 9000 words later in total the essay writing is finally over and done with.

  As for the practical work it's all beginning to be brought together. I find the garment shaping very exciting ...

I have found it very important to think about the composition of the print determined by the shape and movement of the garment and working with the garment rather than producing the print and then struggling to fit it in with a garment shape.

So that a little sneak peak towards the final collection which i plan to produce 3 different but connecting garment suggested pieces. All of which will include a variety of print design based around this abstract and very chaotic nature.

FMP Post 4 Fashion illustration

I'm not much used to fashion illustration but lately i have found it incredibly useful for creating visualizations of how i could see my work being created. Plus it's simply the quickest way of producing an elegant figure with your own strong directed ideas.

From these designs i felt it would be ideal to get to grips with the actual scale of the kind of garment i want to produce, which lead me to think about structure. Paper has always been a friend of mind and so now i'm going embrace it by helping me mimic sculptures on the body. Using a simple manikin even at first was quite tricky as paper doesn't exactly give you easy control over creating shape, but eventually i was able to assemble a composition that best fitted to shape for a fashion piece:

As a development, I then had some of the compositions I had previously designed printed onto large scale paper to then test if the proportions were as expected or if any alterations needed to be added. This structure was slightly different simply because I have been testing out various positions which the pattern would sit in...

FMP Post 2 Research and inspiration

Since the main idea for this project is still based around the idea of structures relating back to the derelict school, I have had to research various design which can also inspire me for my contextual designs...
I have found Pinterest to be extremely helpful for finding designs in this particular category. Stephane Roland's work especially has been incredibly inspiring in the way the fashion sculptures are so well created...

I have been inspired to create designs for fabric which build their own structure and can take on many different forms. And So I have found two other textile designers who think about a similar aspect of adding on arranged structure to them be applied to new ones...

Mika Barr is the designer of this wonderful piece of textiles. She has found an innovative way of using a simple triangle shape which is applied to the fabric using a strong puff binder paste which hardens to then allow the relaxed fabric to be able to move freely but only in the structured spaces available, allowing the fabric again to take on different forms when moved in different directions. Noticeably all the triangles are exactly the same shape and size which perhaps she signs of creating control to these forms.

Much similarly with the "Wooden Carpet" created by Elisa Strozyk, she uses a pattern created up of many wood pieces which are of the same size and shape in a repeated pattern to produce again a sense of controlled manipulation to the fabric...

Final Major Project Post 1

I've been so caught up in the final major project i simply haven't even thought about blogging about it! However, dissertation is now complete which has taken a massive weight off my shoulders as i simply am not the best person for writing about something i'm not hugely passionate about.
The reality is that the main priority in my life is my practice however a textiles degree does unfortunately come with its down sides, but in the end i found something fairly comfortable to write about... colour and 21st century fashion. The focus of my dissertation was to research the work of Josef Albers and to connect his work with fashion designers such as Roksanda Illincic, explaining how many fashion designers are beginning to be inspired by fine art of the late 90th and early 20th century. I found the designs quite boring and in terms of print design they were pretty dull in connection to my own designs, although for colour, these relationships are really inspiring...

An so after finally handing that in i could then move on and focus on my FMP (Final Major Project) which was to be a follow up of the previous research project...

So far my plan is to continue with sketchbook work which, this time round involves "destruction" rather than looking at "construction". I have kept in mind the theme of structure and manipulation combined with imagery, therefore have decided to use the photographs taken from the derelict school in Ronce for inspiration. There i found a lot of really interesting piles of rubble, broken glass, graffiti, and simply general destruction...

Soon these photographs should hopefully turn into some interesting collage and drawings.