GRADUATION PROJECT “A Surreal vyoo”
Monster building of Hong Kong “Quarry Bay”
CONCEPT NOTE Deriving inspiration from the monster building of Hong Kong “Quarry Bay�, a behemoth building that offers an astounding visual of its immense population. The individual units are stacked on top of one other, creating a colourful, cohesive tapestry of homes. Personally for me, the whole apartment system is very surrealistic quite overwhelming but fascinating at the same time. During my research on buildings and drawing abstractions with respect to form, texture, silhouette and surface, sculptor Ivan Black’s work became my inspiration : The conversion of shapes from a two dimensional surface to a 3 dimensional form. This acted as a catalyst in the whole process and led me to the intricate folding technique of kirigami. While exploring, the concealing and revealing folds on paper got translated interestingly onto the fabric. While observing the buildings around me, there are more things associated to life in apartments : different people from different cultures come together in one space together ; the adjustments that are made happily unhappily add to the daily life of the people residing there. The easy and hard flow of life is depicted through the movement in the garments. The marriage of cuts and intersectional/ diagonal lines in the structured silhouettes gives an interesting definition to the garments, along with the implementation of surface manipulation techniques of laser cutting ,engraving and patchwork.
MULTI STOREY BUILDINGS
Repetition of lines. Pattern made by lines and also pattern of people’s lifestyle.
Exaustion of land has led to multiple stories.
The sense of fitting together on one land, leaving behind large lands.
Migration of people leads to more need of space.
How these building look different from different angles, and make a series of layers.
Stories that come together when the concept of living together comes in, brings in the feeling of togetherness.
The surreal feeling that fascinates and is claustrophobic at the same time.
How the idea of balcony looks like interpretation of verandah’s in single storey houses.
These high rise buildings are such an unusual thing for me that their heights have always made me feel fascinated. BrainStorming on these helped to planout the garments further and what all to take as a surface and as a silhoutte. Colour references were derieved from the inspiration picture itself.
CONCEPTUALISATION
The visual of this imagery is so fascinating that it led my process further, I derived my lines from this, by seeing how one point perspective has positive and negative spaces coming out from a 2 dimensional surface and making it a 3 dimensional surface (i.e. a space). Further I looked how it can be converted to a form or surface.
Converting two dimensional forms into three dimensional surface became the key element for my interpretation of repetitve lines as appartment balconies.The struuctures came out from the negative and positive spaces that buildings share with each other. The series of layers that were seen through these were very fascinating similar to the buildings.
Final forms were interpretted in the form of a japanese technique, i.e. KIRIGAMI, which allows a surface to create a sense of positive and negative and also the play of dimensions becomes the main element in it.
SURFACE DEVELOPMENT
Iterating further, started with juxtaposing the geometric lines and elements to form a pattern that can lead me to the final lines and shapes that were to be taken forward.
Final forms were decided and converted into line drawings for laser cutting.
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT Design Development Initially started with identifying the potential of the technique,as it has quality of opening up. It was very important to constantly attempt things on paper and on dress form to balance the elements of design. Further broke down the style lines according to the line quality of the technique and how buildings form skylines, clusters, balconies.
DRAPES EXPLORATIONS For silhoutte, one also worked out few drapes showing some flow of folds, and repitition which is quite similar to the daily pattern of people’s life living in appartments. The thought process that was running through my mind was of adding structure to the garment by adding the technique so that it adds dimension to it and creates an effect while movement.
MUSLIN EXPLORATIONS Explorations were done keeping in mind the structure and flow of the fabric. So, that it comes together as a complete ensemble. As, i didn’t only want to show the structure of the buildings but also the flow of life that people follow living in these appartmental buildings. The technique of Kirigami was tried in muslin by fusing it with bukram to avoid any fraying edges and in order to get crisp creases.Form was explored mainly in geometrical lines and repititive manner.
FINAL RANGE
TARGET AUDIENCE The target market for the collection is women aged between 25-35 who have the disposable income to buy into designer brands. The ‘After five’ collection is designed for women who work in the creative field as a designer, writer or possible style blogger, celebrity influencers or working with craft in their careers. Also the consumer would have a bold style and inspires others to dress as they do. The customer would wear these looks after working within the creative fields to places such as exhibitions, shows and after work drinks with colleagues.
CHALLENGE IN THE COLLECTION The main challenge in the collection was the conversion of muslin to the final fabric without using tons of fusing retain the surface in a fabric. The fabric that I needed had to be a polyester so that it can go for laser cutting, it had to be a dark coloured fabric so that burnt laser marks don’t show, it should resist heat. So the fabric that is used is Felted Wool, which became the master fabric for me and other fabrics such as knitted suede became as assisting fabrics.
THE SURREAL VYOO
L O O K O N E
Look 1 comprises of a shawl collar jacket and a colour blocked shift dress.The surface of the jacket is a kirigami surface,which depicts the stacked upon buildings.
The colour blocked shift dress depicts the different colours that are seen when one looks at the appartmental structure of the buildings and is covered by the Kirigami jacket which has positive and negative spaces formed by heatsetting, through these negative spaces one can see the colours of life.
L O O K T W O
Lines of the silhoutte have been derived from the inspiration itself. The sleeves of the garment have the kirigami pattern depicting the flow of rise of the high rise buildings. It also has a bit of colour in it through the stocking under the sleeves.It also has cowl pockets.The hemline and the neckline have been derived from the skyline of the high rise buildings.
L O O K T H R E E
Look three was the look which had two people in one garment depicting how on one land soo many families come together and accomodate, in a similar way in this look two people are close to each other through the garment which is depiction of a space. The restriction that each person had of being in the same garment were conceptualised on the basis of how people face problems when they live in one building, Also on the other side it brings a sense of togetherness similar to the nature of a appartment living.
L O O K F O U R
Look four comprises of assymetric drape top and bell bottoms with strong colour blocking done by sleeves, with added accent of yellow through cutwork.
L O O K F I V E
Look five comprises of a drape dress which has repetitve cowls connecting the repetitive pattern of life that people follow in the urban scenario.It has a balance of symmetry and assymmetry at the same time.
It is a bold black dress which is colour blocked with accessories