Day Seven In Fashion

On Wednesdays we are left to work independently, without any guidance from tutors. This is always challenging as you have to work using your own initiative. However I always find that the most learning happens when your left alone to solve and deal with the problem. We had a Critical and Contextual Studies lecture in the morning so I was going to be pressured to get what I needed done, done. In the afternoon I retreated to visualizing and sketching some shapes in 360 view, and I devoted the evening to contextual research. In my searches, a piece I found to be particularly intriguing and innovative was the 'Mobius Dress' designed by Meejin Yoon; http://mystudio.us/ <--- definitely worth a read!


Mobius Dress - Some of the forms and shapes created on the body;

Day Six In Fashion

Apologies for being a tardy blogger, the screen on my laptop was broken on Monday. Today we met with tutor Mairead to discuss and critically assess our work to date. To my relief I was still on track, but she suggested that I look more towards the 360 aspect of my shapes. This excited me and I spent the rest of that evening visualizing and sketching what some of my shapes might look like when viewed from the side and from behind. Lots of my shapes were very intricate so these drawings took longer than I expected. Some of the more complex forms required a lot of logic thinking and imagination. It was thrilling to see how different some of these designs looked when placed 3-dimensionally on the body, equally however, some were disappointing. When the birds started singing I decided it was time to call it a night, but I will certainly return to this tomorrow!

Day Five In Fashion

Today we commenced to work with fabric. We were to cut our shape into a light, medium and heavy weight fabric to familiarize ourselves with the different weights of fabric. Also to look at how the different weights sat when placed on the mannequin. Until now, my tutor pointed out that my shapes to date were all very repetitive, which was true. She suggested I look more towards an organic approach for this exercise to acquire a new variety of shapes. I really enjoyed this approach as it was much freer and more unpredictable. I spent the day working primarily with medium weight so tomorrow I plan to experiment with a light weight fabric and a heavy weight fabric. It should be interesting  to see the differences! I like the contrast in shape between my fabric pieces and my paper pieces previously. I should be able to pull a broad new spectrum of shapes from these, some which will work some which won't;

Day Four In Fashion

Today we met with tutor Giordana for a lesson on fashion illustration. Members of our class volunteered to put their voguing skills to the test while the rest of us recorded their poses utilizing paints, charcoal, pencil, pen, ink, paper collage etc. Throughout the lesson we were shown various styles of illustration with which we could attempt to mimic or take influence from. I really enjoyed the morning, it was just what we needed to wind down after a very busy and intense (but enjoyable!) week. I want to practice some more of these next week as I believe it is an indispensable skill, and something I would love to incorporate into my project when my collection is finalized. I forgot to take photos but I'll add them on in the coming days.

Day Three in Fashion

Today no tutors were to be around so we were left to our own devices to complete work assigned to us yesterday. For Thursday we had to have a suiting croquis decidied upon (small illustration of a mannequin), two shapes finalized to fit onto the croquis, and with those numerous illustrations of our shapes in various sizes (blown up scaled down etc.) applied to the croquis bodies. This is hard to explain but hopefully this process will become clearer from the photos. I will put these up later when I have all my shapes pulled, this is still ongoing.

Day Two in Fashion.

Today we met with fashion tutor Mairead. In the morning she had half the class present their work done to date. It was really interesting to see all the different approaches and the resulting shapes people had pulled from their objects. In the afternoon we were introduced to the mannequins. We were given brown paper with which to cut out our shapes. We then used these on the mannequins to play around with shape and form. This was really fun, but the evening came and I realised I still hadn't got any shapes I was really happy with. In a panic pulled some different shapes out from my analytical drawings. I decided to cut these smaller and make multiples. I was much more satisfied with the shapes I was creating with these, and panic over the process was fun again! However ten o' clock came and it was time to go home. This was really annoying because I had been working so well, and now it's one am and I'm tired, but I'll have to soldier on because I've done little since. At least I did the blog. I want to cut out some more shapes so I have a lot to work with tomorrow. These are some of the shapes I created, they're all segiments/negative spaces of keys;

Day One in Fashion

We were welcomed into Fashion Design by fashion tutor Pamela Heaney. We had been given our brief at the weekend so we were put straight to work researching and analising our chosen theme. Our 2 week project will require me to work extremely fast, (something I find extremely difficult) and has us looking primarily at shape in construction. For my theme, I chose to look at the shapes (mostly negative) of keys, both antiqued and modern for a variety. I spent the rest of the day (and night) drawing keys and from these pulling interesting shapes. I was very happy with the shapes that resulted. They were even interesting on their own. However they will be put to the test on the mannequins tomorrow, so hopefully they will make interesting forms when placed on the body.

The Pursuit of Fashion Design.

Our project dealing with movement and motion has now concluded. We have moved onto what is called 'Ranking', whereby three disciplines are selected for trial out of the six offered by the Limerick School of Art and Design; Fashion Design, Visual Communications, Ceramics, Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking. For my three disciplines I have chosen to trial Fashion Design, Visual Communications and Printmaking. I came to the Limerick School of Art and Design to study Fashion Design, so it is paramount that I give those two weeks my all. And I will. Unfortunately the competition is cut-throat as spaces are limited. Fashion Design happens to be my first schedueled discipline, a prospect I was uncomfortable with. However I'm here now and I'm really enjoying it. I'll be documenting my progress on here day-by-day for the next two weeks on the trials and tribulations of it all!

Remember these?

Well, they were just lying around so I decided to put them to good use.

Bench-Marking;

And then a bin;

[There is a tree too, but I broke my SD card before the photos made it onto my computer. I'll try and scan them up soon.]

Legging/Catsuit Design Proposal;

The material ^^

[An illustration of the proposed piece is on it's way]