Evaluation

I chose to explore the topic of age for the DiversityNow competition project. It was a subject that captured my attention when beginning my research, particularly as I felt it was something that I could display within a fashion illustration, which broke the conventional stereotype of a narrow Caucasian model with elongated features.

During my research and the developmental process, I explored the beauty of the older women. With this in mind, I focused on the acceptance of ageing through embracing the process of getting older by having a positive outlook on life and seeing age as just a number! 3 eccentric older women particularly influenced this element of my work. The afore mentioned being Iris Apfel, Sarah Jane Adams and Baddie Winkle. These women all have something in common which is that they are famous for embracing their age through diverse dress style and a cavalier attitude to the relationship between the way you dress and your age. In other words, they all see age as just as number!

In addition to my work on the acceptance of age, I also wanted to explore the human body in relation to this, particularly as I was going to be producing some illustrations for my final outcome. I went to a life drawing class in Brighton one evening as I felt this might have been beneficial leading up to my illustrative work. The class helped me to start thinking about my illustrations in more depth in terms of how I may capture an older women’s body in a way that didn’t look like a conventional fashion illustration.

I felt inspired by the life drawing class, particularly in terms of drawing styles, techniques and how I could follow this through into my final work. Alongside the life drawing, I was influenced by Picasso with his continuous line drawings as well as illustrators including Frida Wannerberger and Alina Zamanova. All of the above were aspects, which influenced my final outcome.

Overall, I am pleased with the final illustrations. I feel they successfully depict my focus on age and embracing the process of ageing through a positive attitude, highlighted through dress. I was delighted when I found out that 2 of my illustrations had been selected for the DiversityNOW competiton for the all walks campaign. I felt these 2 illustrations in particular reflected my focus on embracing the process of ageing as the faces were a key factor to depicting their age whilst the choice of using limited colour on the face, helped to draw attention to the crucial message I was trying to portray. In other words, I wanted to display the theme of diversity through contradicting the stereotypical fashion illustration by using an older women with a quirky appearance proving that age can be beautiful.