preview of some samples from growth and restriction

There are a few more samples that i havent photographed yet, using more of the rolled leather technique, and experimenting more with connection and the idea of the garment looking like it has jewellery attached.

work is taking overrr

My uni room isnt the largest and my work seems to be taking over, this was actually after a vigorous tidy up, so it doesnt look to bad! ive had to put all my work on the walls to stop them getting crumpled and messy and im using my drying rack to hang my samples on!

NTU StudioMade- growth and restriction

My brief from the ntu studio made competition

Growth and restriction Bones have been an influence for many designers with their connotations suggesting something sinister and gothic yet edgy and unique. I have been looking into African beauty and what their culture perceive as beautiful. I found their use of neck stretching with special necklaces and use of mouth plates very interesting. What they see as beautiful was exaggerating the body and challenging what is natural with what is extraordinary yet achievable, pushing the body to its limits by elongating the neck and stretching the mouth. Something, which to a western culture sounds nothing but barbaric and painful, for the African culture, is normal.

I began thinking about restriction and movement. I want to look in depth at bones and how they are structured and connected and how I can translate this into my textile development. I want to use new techniques such as laser cutting and the use of resin to trap my embroidery which will then be used as a fashion accessory or as placement and embellishment on a garment. I also want to inject some color into my work, by looking at flowers which represent growth throughout the seasons; this offers a direct symbolic contrast with the idea of restriction.

I want to crush and trap the flowers perhaps using flower pressing to distort them and evaluate the metaphorical similarities between bones and flowers. Bones grow throughout the life course, they grow thicker and stronger to support an ever growing frame, but then as you grow older they weaken and break or become bent which is much the same as the seasonal life course of flowers, certain flowers flourish during certain seasons and during other seasons they wilt and die.

Looking at the process of trapping and wrapping the flowers, this reminded me somewhat of the idea of mummification, a physical representation of entrapment and to contrast this also the idea of escape, the theme running through my work will be contrast, a symbolic contrast of ideas such as growth/restriction and entrapment/escape but also I would like these ideas to be represented visually through the use of contrasting colours. The colours I would like to use would be taking ideas from my inspiration of flowers and bones, so whites, grays and blacks for the dull tones of the bones but also an injection of colour through accents like orange, yellow and pink from looking at the flowers.

To kick-start my project I am visiting museums to begin thinking about and looking at bones and mummification. I will be drawing ideas from my visits and sketches as well crushing and pressing flowers. I want to work very structurally, thus I will work with the idea of connection (i.e. the connection of bones and the connection of flowers to their roots) and creating raised surfaces, incorporating use of cut work and building up surfaces I will then work directly onto the mannequin to keep in mind placement.

For my contextual research I am looking at designers who create very structural garments and accessories, such as Sandra Backlund who creates garments that are all about form, creating and exaggerating shape by the use of unusual materials and also knit. Alexander McQueen has also been inspired by bones and skulls so I will look at how he uses this inspiration whether it is very literal and visual or subtly within his garments through prints or the actual use of real bones. David koma was another designer I have looked at, I was really inspired by how simple his garments are but then the use of metals to add exaggeration to certain areas of the female body which also gives a futuristic look.

I want to design unusual fashion accessories or extravagant details in an innovative way for garments by incorporating both my visual ideas and my theoretical ideas. For this term I want to focus on expanding my techniques and experimentation within my textile development so at the moment. My project is working towards the studio made innovation brief creating structural samples for fashion garments or fashion jewellery.

“I'm interested in blurring the line between jewellery and clothing so that you don’t know where one starts and the other finishes” Michelle jank

Below are pages taken from my sketchbook looking at using petals, and floral drawings alongside my bone drawings.