Month: October 2018

Tutorial

Following on from the brief group tutorial in the previous week, I had set some goals for myself to become more prepared for my text tutorial. This was to take out some more books and focus on choosing a brand so my essay has a clear direction to it. I took out the books “The Walking Society”, “Kicks Japan”, and “Art and Sole”, all based on footwear and trainers to give me more of a direction. This was helpful as the book “The Walking Society” was based on footwear brand Camper and luckily I found this interesting enough to began as a starting point for my essay. I chose this brand because I wanted to focus on a non sportswear brand that sells trainers to relate it to modern attitudes towards trainers which are utilised for their style or status rather than practicality.

 

As both my goals from were achieved, I was better equipped for the tutorial in which Alex suggested that my essay route would be appropriate in relation to my research. They suggested on looking more into current affairs and the social implications of trainers relating to issues such as femininity and masculinity as well as celebrity. I was also encouraged by Alex to look deeper into the connotations of the colour red in different cultures and how this could relate back to gender they also suggested I research into the personal and everyday use of trainers in contrast to the practicality aspect of trainers used for sports especially how women were shamed for wearing items as such and encouraged to look more feminine.

Patti Wilson Presentation

Out of a hat we got given a stylist to do a presentation on, which at the outset intimidated me as presentations were never a strength of mine although I realised they are a necessity for improving my communications skills especially as a short presentation is one of the outcomes for this task.

 

Patti Wilson was the stylist I was given; she’s a highly famous New York based stylist who had worked on shoots with world renowned photographers such as Nick Knight, Steven Meisel and Steven Klein as well as editorial features in a large number of Vogues, especially being the new Editor-at-Large at Vogue Italia.

 

Her personal aesthetic within styling is having sleek work which isn’t over the top in terms of details and accessories but not minimalistic in the slightest either. She creates looks with a few colours complimented by dramatic cuts and shapes to focus the imagery on, sometimes aided by a powerful pose by the model to tie the look together.

 

In particular, I enjoyed researching a shoot she did with black and white portrait photographer Ethan James Green. This was because both had very distinctive styles therefore it was exciting to see how they collaborated and made a harmony with their styles to create a dynamic and visually exciting editorial to look at. As I had found out before, Wilson enjoys the use of few minimal accessories to tie a look together which she did with this shoot, for example, the large headgear or wide belts in one colour to bring together to look, which is effective as the images are in black and white as this means that the clothes can be more dramatic as one element of the image, colour, is being eliminated. Taking this forward, when doing black and white photography I will try to experience more with shape rather than patternas you can create beautiful shapes easier win black and white.

Styling Workshop 1

 

The presentation for styling got me positive about the upcoming workshop especially as my previous experiences with styling in my previous courses were more negative due to lack of direction and teaching. Looking into the history of styling and key stylists in industry with their own styles made me inspired to start the workshop instead of fearful like my old course where I had little direction or advice on why styling was important.

 

I struggled with the workshop as I was new with the idea of styling, I had little experience with doing it successfully so I didn’t know how to communicate any sort of message or story with clothing and fabrics. Although, being the model for the project allowed me to trial different methods of wearing a garment in a different way to if I were witnessing it in front of me. I found it difficult to creative a variety of intriguing looks from a simple white shirt even though I knew it could be done however, I soon realized that we were being too safe and cautious with our ideas. As the styling workshop progressed, me and my partner began to be more successful in creating new looks as we thought we had ran out of ideas and began turning the shirt inside out or upside down, seeing what worked and what didn’t.

Essay – What is Required

During the workshop today we had to discuss what we had found from researching our fashion artefact to someone else in the class with a different artefact leading me to realise that I need to expand on my knowledge of trainers as I could only state the bare facts. Therefore I will go to the library soon and take out at least 4 books relating to the history of footwear and different perspectives on trainers, e.g. from different cultures of brands.

 

A lot of us in the group were looking towards street wear brands like Nike and Adidas which is what I was leaning towards as it would be convenient to gain research for as I wear them myself. However, I did want to stray away from what the majority of people in my group were researching into.

 

The essay plan seemed difficult as I didn’t know what aspects of my research and experimentation to lay out into each section however I feel like this was due to my lack of research and experimentation therefore my aims for the week are to further my primary research, as stated in my last post, and to seek out a wider range of sources including books to narrow down the rand that I would like to focus on as these are factors I need to consider as they will help me form the basis of my essay.

Beginnings of my Primary Research

My fashion artefact, red trainers, was given to me as a name out of a hat so we couldn’t choose what we were going to focus on for the next few weeks so I didn’t know what to expect. I’m feeling positive that it’s an object I can research as trainers are something I wear constantly myself however having to research something so niche might be something I struggle with. Although the brief says we can look at our object generally as well, therefore I will start of my research looking into trainers in general and specify at a later date.

 

My primary research began with me visiting different shops and finding different types of red trainers. I went into Sports Direct, SIze, TK Maxx and Offspring for a variety of shops; sportswear or miscellaneous. My findings were that there were little to no red trainers for children, younger than the age of 5, and if there were red shoes they would be little pumps/dolly shoes aimed at young girls. There were significantly more red trainers, shoes with red accents aimed at men than women, although there were still some for women but they were the classic shoes that come in a series of colourways, e.g. Converse All Stars in red or Adidas Stan Smiths with red details. As I’m interested in the social and historical aspect of wearing trainers relating back to feminism and the femininity of women/children, I found these results interesting and something I will take forward when writing my essay.

 

I then gained first hand imagery by going along the main roads of Brighton and photographing people wearing trainers that were red or had red accents on them. This allowed my research to be more authentic than if I took photographs of people that I was friends with which would also limit the variety of images I would get. I didn’t do this for aesthetic purposes just to gain research and see what trainers people were wearing, what they were wearing them with and any patterns I could spot. I found that, relating my shop visits and outside photography together, I could hardly spot any children wearing trainers but could spot a lot of adults wearing red trainers, usually with outfits that were more plain. My next step in my research would be to do some observational sketches looking into the shape of trainers and asking people on their opinion on them to get a more varied range of sources to form the basis of my sketchbook. 

Keeping a Sketchbook

During our lesson regarding the importance and specifics within keeping a sketchbook, we discussed artist Derek Jarman’s sketchbooks and what is successful about them. I was initially attracted to his method of documenting imagery, ideas and his thought process as it was close to mine. Through the use of his pages I can tell that he doesn’t waste time considering the aesthetics of the page of the layout of images in order to look attractive but more so to lay out his ideas clearly. The combination of pages with only imagery in contrast to pages with just text; either note taking or found text explain the diversity in sources that are needed to gain a successful amount of research for projects. Visually, I found his style of working admirable as his works seems more like a scrapbook; there are a combination of things on the pages: flyers, text, found imagery, own imagery, notes, scribbles and annotations which inspire me to apply all of these to my own work through my own voice in my sketchbook as it’s more interesting than using images found from the internet.

Following on from this, I began to place flyers and notes from exhibitions into my work in a method that was inspired by Jarman’s sketchbooks which is something I hadn’t been taught to do before. Previously I was told to focus more on what the page in a sketchbook was trying to communicate to someone looking at it, however after looking at sketchbooks like Jarman’s, I realised it’s more bout my own voice and what I’m trying to communicate myself to bring my ideas forward which made me glad that we looked at a variety of sketchbooks in this lesson. The focus of this lesson was to prove that our sketchbooks were an individual exploration into our fashion artefacts, mine being ‘red trainers’

Photographic Story Project

Exploring Brighton, the Fashion Communication course as well as our expectations, ambitions, desires and hopes for these two things as one of our first projects was helpful in immersing me in the city of Brighton, getting myself comfortable in this project and allowing me to take ownership in my first small project as this was focused on us individuals/partners rather than a group resulting in me having more of a personal direction which is ideal for a first project. Partnering up with someone in the project gave me the confidence to share my ideas and build upon someone else’s ideas to merge them together in one result that we were proud of.

 

Harley Weir’s exhibition ‘Homes’ at Fabrica in Brighton as part of the Brighton Photo Biennial was a successful starting point for me to gain some general artistic direction and inspiration to guide me in this project. A sense of place and environment is thoroughly explored within her photography as she eliminates the idea of having a person as the focal point of her images, allowing me to sense the atmosphere of the environment from what people have left behind through the materials, objects and colours she captures.

 

This helped me progress my idea development of what area i could focus on in my images as I realised that I wanted to focus more on colour and the moods I can convey from more colourful images therefore this led me to brainstorm and with my partner; we wanted to display the progress of a night out in Brighton. Both sociable people ourselves, this was ideal in our project and relates to the brief as it’s personal to us and an expectation of our experience in Brighton.

 

Initially my photographs were of my friends in our flat before the night out however these weren’t successful to me as they were too staged; I feel as if candid photographs were more effective in conveying the positive emotions relating to the brief as they would be more authentic and less forced, also there wasn’t a clear narrative as it was simple photographs of my friends with no story behind it. Improving on from my attempts that I wasn’t as happy with, I went to a nightclub to take photographs instead. My usual style in art and design is something a bit more abstract, usually involving a lot of colour meaning that I didn’t want to stray from this as this project was about myself as a creative individual as well as my ambitions for the course. This led me to taking a large amount of photographs in the nightclub, capturing the blur of the fast movement of dancing, the various colours emitted from the club lights and the positivity and atmosphere of the club, taking inspiration from Harley Weir’s approach to photography but applying to my project instead.

 

Overall, I was really pleased with the outcome, working in a pair was useful in gaining new perspective on the brief and tying our two different styles of working together which is essential as when I get to industry there will be frequent collaborations within a company. Our tutor also agreed that our work looked fun and exciting and portrayed the night out aspect of Brighton successfully but we both agreed that we could have thought about an interesting layout to harmonise our images together as we literally displayed them on our laptops in no particular order. Experimenting with a layout is something I will have to consider in future projects as it can help portray a narrative clearer than simply displaying them all in the same size in a row.

 

 

Year 3 Work Placement Presentations and Discussions

As the Level 6 students on Fashion Communication with Business had just completed their one year work placements we engaged in a group presentation, activity and discussion drawing on their experiences where we had the opportunity to ask questions for them to answer and for them to give us their advice. Although I’m a first year student, I believe it is important to discuss this and give the idea some thought as my upcoming summer might be an opportunity to delve into these various areas of Fashion Communication to gain experience in before I commit to a few places for a whole year that I may not be as interested in when it comes to it.

 

Personally, I was curious in how much help we get from the tutors in finding a place, which is what my question was to ask the Level 6 students; their reply is that it’s very independent however if we’re completely struggling they will try their hardest to help us which for me, sounds ideal because getting a job should be independent, I wouldn’t get this help when I graduate so it would be good practice to try this for myself.

 

The discussion was useful as it gave me an insight into the life of an intern and gave me a different perspective of the different areas I could explore within Fashion Communication when I graduate. Following on from this session, I would like to explore further into PR/communications for a fashion brand or for an event because of how the skills and experience used for these roles relate to what I have briefly explored before. The Level 6 student speaking to us had worked for a company that I had as well so it was exciting to see her perspective on the brand from the area of the company that she worked in compared to me.

100 Word Biography (Summer homework)

The communication of fashion intrigues me because there are countless platforms to explore, expand and push the meaning of fashion as well as the aesthetics behind fashion to today’s society which is very exciting as there’s always something new going on. As the art and design industry is developing there are constantly new ways to use digital media to communicate to a wider audience which is where my main interests lie; using graphic design, photography, film, fashion and animation I hope to experiment further in communicating fashion to a wider audience through the skills I’ll gain in this course.

500 Word Critical Reflection (Summer homework) – “Bondage Suit”

One of the biggest fashion movements to celebrate individuality and challenge the social

normalities of the time was the punk fashion movement of the 1970s which expanded on

the culture and aesthetic of punk music. Originating from a shop called ‘Sex’ and a rock

club called ‘Roxy’ 2 indicated a following of people who enjoyed the controversial culture of

these places and who began to challenge conventional standards by acting a certain way

which expanded into the way they dressed and therefore represented themselves. The

youth of the seventies enjoyed the contrast to the previous hippie fashion trend of the

sixties which expanded on the themes of peace, love and serenity into fashion.

Extremities within fashion rose as Malcolm McLaren became manager for the Sex Pistols

who had expressive and chaotic styles including extra rips, faded jeans, safety pins as

accessories, bold and deliberately offensive slogans 3 causing publicity through

controversies and heated debates. In the ‘Sex’ boutique that Vivienne Westwood and

McLaren ran together, they sold a variety of contentious pieces of clothing with bold,

suggestive and provocative themes. “Bondage suit”, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm

McLaren, 1976 4 shows two outfits; one masculine and one feminine which portray the style

of clothing that represented the punk movement which they sold at their boutique in

London. 5 Even the title, ‘Bondage suit’ has connotations of a sexual nature that must called

dispute between older more traditional inhabitants of the local area which may have brought

them more customers through word of mouth, whether it was positive or negative, it didn’t

matter because they were still generating customers. Black leather and belt buckles

inspired by sexual fetish wear were key elements to the clothes they stocked and they put

themselves out their and used their bravery to create statement pieces that spoke for

themselves. They say that clothes do the talking but was this saying something positive or

negative about the person wearing it? Was this impacting the people around them in a

positive or negative way? Although the clothes are seen as immoral and revolting by

some people due to the inappropriate of the way women especially represent themselves

and the morals they should consider, on the other hand, other people were seen as brave

and inspiring by wearing something so intimidating to a lot of people to voice their opinion

and stand out in a sheltered society therefore changing the views and social structure of

youths in a positive way.