Controversial rope fashion

Found a few more images that I found slightly controversial yet still linking with my lovely naval/rope theme, they are a little strange but who doesn't love strange thought I would post then on here is after all I could well affect my designs and it is all part or my process and journey to my final outcome and garment. These are more the shape of garments rather than little details, these could easily be something I would do myself but its a little to much skin to be shown for a charity auction. The shapes even though the women are exposed I feel is very classic figure hugging style and if the rope were maybe over another fabric to cover everything up it could be an interesting take on some classic silhouettes.

Enjoy!

Knot fashion!

Looking around the Internet for interesting pieces based on knots I came across a blog which I found interesting, the blogger was also fond of ropes and knots, so I had a little look around the Internet to see what I could find and collected a few images of knots in fashion and no doubt in home wear. Obviously every summer the nautical theme will become popular time and time again but I was looking for something a little more than a printed t-shirt of an anchor or knots and I am pleasantly surprised with what I found, so I have included some images for you.

The following images are:

Ismodern cotton cord rope necklace.

De la cuona Ormulo cushion.

Paco Rabanne spring 2006 dress with rope knot straps.

A Thomas Paul Scrimshaw coaster set.

Continental home Pier lamp.

Mikka. (2010). Knotty Monday. Available: http://www.mischmash.com/2010/11/knot-ty-monday.html. Last accessed 2012.

Target customers

Normally for a design project like this we would have to identify a specific market in which our clothes would be sold and appeal too, as our party dresses are going to a charity auction the customer base will be very vast.

However, as I enjoy the marketing side of things I have decided to treat this as if it was going to be made and sold in stores so in this post I will include a customer profile, for my own fun but what's the harm.

When making a garment it is so important to know who your customer is and what sort of market level you will be aiming to achieve. This is vital for the making of any garment or collection as it will be the basis for your fabric quality, trims and finishes, the use of lining, seams, and fastenings all of these things will be based on your market level as it will need to be the correct quality to match, you would never walk in to a couture boutique and see something made to a high street standard, couture costs more because of the fabrics and the time that will go into making the item.

If I were designing this dress for a consumer this is the market level I would base it on.

Customer profile:


Economic level: Middle class.
Physiological makeup: Fashion conscious, loves travel, eclectic taste, mobile lifestyle, university educated, art collector, loves bricolage.
Age: 25-35.
Sex: Female.
Income level: 40,000-50,000 salary.
Habits: marine based hobbies, opera, theatrical entertainment, visiting stately homes, loves concerts and museums.
Work: Editor of own fashion and entertainment magazine, incorporating the role of art editor occasionally.
Shop: High end stores, mainly in London places such as browns, John Lewis, Selfridges and boutiques in Knightsbridge.

Madeline Vionnete

After never really hearing about Madeline I thought I would look her up, in doing so I found that she was on the zero waste fashion movement in the mid twentieth century. Her designs are absolutely beautiful and totally inspirational, she uses a lot of lace and delicate fabrics creating stunning pieces, her designs are classic. When you hear sustainable fashion I know that my first thought is always linking it to hessian or other bland fabrics and tatty garments, but seeing her work and other designers sustainable work has shown me that you don't have to make something that looks 'recycled' its can be a beautiful piece and a work of art in its own right. I thought I would share a few images of Madeleine's work in hopes you will all feel as inspired as I did, and has proved zero waste fashion is the way forward.

Zero waste fashion

After researching into Margiela I went onto looking into zero waste fashion, which I knew absolutely nothing about until now. You always hear about sustainable fashion but I have never really heard zero waste fashion at all. Zero waste fashion refers to clothing that produces little or zero waste during production. It is considered part of the broad spectrum which is sustainable fashion movement. It is decided into two approaches, per-consumer which is where they eliminate waste during manufacture and post-consumer which generates post consumer clothing or second hand clothing if you will eliminating waste at what would be the end of the product use life of a garment. Zero waste is not a modern concept it has been used for years in garments like the kimono, sari, chiton and many other costumes.

The general process of manufacturing a garment produces 15% wastage, which eventually will all add up when building a collection and the wastage will be vast!

Madeleine Vionnete uses a design approach that aligns itself with zero waste fashion and many of her garments generate minimal waste. Alison Gwilt and Timo Rissanen's book shaping sustainable fashion includes a number of references to zero waste fashion.

Exhibitions showing zero waste fashion include:

DPOL by Siddhartha Upadhyaya exhibited at London science museum, antenna exhibition for its breakthrough in sustainable and zero waste fashion.

Bad Dogs by Timo Rissanen's.

ZERO Waste: fashion re-patterned In 2011, curated by Arti Sandu from Columbia college, Chicago.

In my first year of my course we were encouraged to incorporate sustainable fashion as much as possible the way I took this into my own practice was by filling my lay out plans to maximum capacity with all and as many more pattern pieces as I could, obviously with this project we are using old dresses and up-cycling them and using the fabric to create a re vamped party dress, so we are giving something old a new lease of life.

Claire Martin . (2007). Zero waste fashion . Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Waste_Fashion. Last accessed 2012.

More Margiela...

I was just casually browsing through a fashion book 'radical fashion' edited by Claire Wilcox and stumbled across an interesting section on Maison Martin Margiela, and his collection of garments that he deconstructed and increased the size of, as we are looking into alternative cutting I thought this could be a technique that I would maybe later find useful for my own collection. I have included a few images I have taken from the book.

Margiela, deconstruction.

Maison Martin Margiela famously is known for his deconstruction work and was closely linked with the deconstructionist fashion movement in the 1980's. Margielas deconstruction goes much further than the cutting and ripping up of t-shirts, safety pins and razor blades, he has taken it to a high fashion level. He introduced it as his pret-a-porter collection and is available in luxury stores all over the world.

He held an exhibition in 2007 of a collection of his artisanal garments over the years.

He uses a vast range of interesting finds such as, hand gloves, gaffer tape and porcelain, and although his clothes are strange to say the least they are beautifully (de)constructed.

He once said " the creative approach is born from a poetic conception of imperfections, the extremes and the changes of day to day life".

Galleria Carla soxxani. (2007). Madison Martin Margiela . Available: http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/margiela.html. Last accessed 16/10/2012.

Knot dress pattern

I have taken some photos of the book I spoke about the previous post, this is a guide on how to make the pattern. There are so many different techniques in this book I wish I had time to try then all. I'm not sure if I like the detailing of the knotting on the front of the dress so I would've to experiment and maybe try it as a shoulder piece or even flip it and have it as a back panel.

All images taken from: Pattern magic, Tomoko nakamichi. 2009. Part 2, decorative structure.

Alternative construction

So we have been asked to look into pattern cutters who use alternative pattern cutting techniques, and deconstructive techniques. A few days ago I ordered a couple of brilliant books from amazon that I was shown by a lecturer, pattern magic 1 & 2 they are originally Japanese pattern cutting books but they now have an English version available. They have so many interesting and unusual ways for creating garments, one page I found to be brilliant was a dress patter page with pattern pieces to create a dress but rather than having a generic neck like the pattern pieces are extended so once the pieces are constructed there is fabric left to tie knots to create detailing on the front.

Other techniques used in this book are also linked a lot with knotting fabric and ways of constructing garments without having to stitch them. The book is written by Tomoko nakamichi in 2009.

Knot research

After taking inspiration from naval knots I have decided to look into making some myself before I could create any I

Had a look online and found some instruction sheets on how to do them. After downloading the sheets and having a go, I found it to be quite difficult so I am going to try and find some YouTube links to help me, I'll post them on here one I have. Found them.

All tutorials found at:

Www.igkt-Solent.co.uk/tutorials/42-ocean-plait-mat.

kaleidoscope rope Patterns

As i was continuing to play around with repeat patterns on Photoshop i found a way to make Kaleidoscope patterns, So I thought I would include them into my work somehow. I particularly like the shapes where the images meet at the triangle point, if printed using the mimaki printer onto a nice fabric it could make a very interesting t-shirt or kimono jacket. I don't feel it is quite what im looking for this project so I will most probably not be using them in my final garment, but i wanted to include them in this as it is all part of my process and getting me to my final outcome.

Baroque

After playing around on Photoshop for while with the image of my sketched ocean plait knot, I came up with a print by cutting some of the image up, putting random pieces together and repeating them. After finishing the print it turned Out a little similar to a Baroque or Damask print. This has now inspired me to print the pattern onto some material and play around with it a little. I went onto Google And gathered a few images of baroque prints that I found inspiring and could link with my own prints, and made a secondary moodboard with them.

After analyzing the print once finished I think I am going to add a little more to it to make it less like a wallpaper a create a print similar but more suited for a garment.

Ocean plait mat knot

Out of all the knots that i have found, this one in particular was one of my favorites. The shape could easily be taken apart and made into a beautiful print, and could also be added to any garment for texture. As our colour palette is black, red, white and gold I have decided to go more towards black which will encourage me to look a lot more closely at texture and surface design. The knots link in with this well as they can be added to pretty much any part of a garment such as cuffs, hem, back panel or shoulder detail.

When working in black fabric it is important that your final outcome does not look to bland, so looking at these knots is definitely opening my mind about creating something to look a little more exciting even if it is just using one simple colour.

I have included a picture of the knot and a inspiration sketch taken from the original knot.

Naval knots

I put together a few images from the museum at Royal William Yard of all the knots and different fastenings that were used to secure the ships, ropes etc. some of the fastenings are quite large but in a smaller scale could be transformed into garment fastenings or design features adding a little something extra to a collection, unusual fastenings always interest me, so taking inspiration from these and maybe trying to use or incorporate them into my theme or my own collection is definitely something i will be looking into.

Primary moodboard

This is a mood board, or a collection of images I took for my primary research consisting of some of the old buildings, museums and Original features placed in a modern setting. Going through the images one of the main reasons Royal William Yard was so inspiring for myself, was the mix of the old original features mixed with an ultra modern living space, something i would definitely like to incorporate into my own design work.

Primary Research

Taking the theme of Madame Butterfly I was interested in taking the theme of the naval officer, which proved to be a good idea as my lecturer informed me we live in a naval port. So that day I took a trip with a friend to Royal William Yard which is an old naval port, developed into a modern living complex. I had never been before and I was surprised at how much inspiration i took from it. Inside there is a naval museum, so i took some photographs and came across a couple of displays of naval and boating knots. 

After finding these Displays I felt instantly inspired and wanted to start trying to make some of these knots myself and maybe incorporating them into a print.

Photos taken at royal William yard, Monday 1st October 2012.

Puccini

After the group mind map, i took inspiration from an Italian, Japanese themed opera Madame Butterfly by Puccini. 

A romantic opera with the usual tragic ending, Madame Butterfly first premiered on February 17th 1904.

 

A brief overview of the storyline. 

In 1904, a U.S. Naval officer, Pinkerton, rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan for him and his soon-to-be wife, "Butterfly"She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, since he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife.Three years later, Butterfly is still waiting for Pinkerton to return, as he had left shortly after their wedding.The American Consul, Sharpless, comes to the house with a letter which he has received from Pinkerton in which he is asked to break some news to Butterfly that he is coming back to Japan, but he cannot bring himself to finish it, because Butterfly becomes very excited to hear that Pinkerton is coming back. Sharpless asks Butterfly what she would do if Pinkerton were not to return. She then reveals that she gave birth to Pinkerton's son after he had left and asks Sharpless to tell him.Sharpless and Pinkerton arrive at the house, along with Pinkerton's new American wife, Kate. They have come because Kate has agreed to raise the child. But, as Pinkerton sees how Butterfly has decorated the house for his return, he realizes he has made a huge mistake. He admits that he is a coward and cannot face her, leaving Suzuki, Sharpless and Kate to break the news to Butterfly. Agreeing to give up her child if Pinkerton comes himself to see her, she then prays to statues of her ancestral gods, says goodbye to her son, and blindfolds him. She places a small American flag into his hands and goes behind a screen, cutting her throat with her father's hara-kiri knife. Pinkerton rushes in. He is too late.

Ricordi. (1907). Madama Butterfly. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madama_Butterfly. Last accessed 15/10/12.

Edita Camm. (2009). Madame Butterfly. Available: http://www.iicnairobi.esteri.it/IIC_Nairobi/WebForm/..%5Cwebform%5CSchedaEvento.aspx?id=141&citta=Nairobi. Last accessed 15/10/12.