Global Mash-up Punk/Japanese
Rachel Blackburn-H00163048 Course: E19FT: Fashion Theory into Practise Academic session: 2015/2016, Semester 1 Heriot -Watt University, School of Textiles and Design
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Design Brief The student was first asked to visit an exhibition over the summer and
record their findings in a visually appealing way. The student was also asked to research trends for Spring/Summer 16 before starting the main project. The student was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit the Alexander McQueen – Savage Beauty exhibition which they found breath taking. Walking through the exhibition the student felt so inspired by all of the work they saw. From this the student began their summer project re-creating works from the exhibition. The main trend that the student felt inspired by in S/S 16 was the Deep Summer trend as they connected to a lot of the visuals and themes in a personal way within the trend. When the student came back to university from summer they were asked to create a collection of six outfits based on the idea of global mash-up. This meant that the student was to take their own culture and mix it with another that they found interesting to create a unique collection. The student was to research the two cultures they had chosen and then take this forward into toiling, remembering to take inspiration from their summer project to help them create toils. After toiling the student would be expected to come up with roughly 120 initial design ideas developing them along the way into their final six outfits. The student was also expected to have some form of fabric manipulation within their work. The student was then to select an outfit to manufacture into garment form and also create a working drawing for this outfit. The student decided that they would use their punk aesthetic for their own personal culture. The student would research a family member who has inspired them in their punk aesthetic, along with their self and the history of punk. For the other culture the student decided that they would look at Japanese culture from traditional culture to modern day culture. When researching the modern day cultures the student found that there were many sub-cultures within Japan and that they were particularly drawn to the Lolita culture, specifically the gothic and sweet Lolita aesthetics within the Lolita culture. This would be their main body of research for the modern day culture. The focus on the traditional culture of Japan would be looking at their traditional costumes and clothing, the students decided that they would mainly look at the kimono for this aspect of research. From the students research they used the traditional sleeve style of a kimono for a base point. From the Lolita aspect the student took the fitting of garments on a body and how they have their own patterns to help create a clever fabric manipulation to warp their selected fabric into a new unique pattern. What the student took from the punk culture was mainly the fabric choices, the idea of using corseting within a garment and the edginess that punks use to be different from others within fashion.
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Contents
RSummer esearchExhibition Trends Punk Japanese
Market Research Toils Designs Final Collection Working Drawing Final Outfit Evaluation Refrences/Biblyography
Page 4 Page 6 Page 8 Page 12 Page 16 Page 17 Page 21 Page 25 Page 28 Page 30 Page 38 Page 39
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Summer Exhibition
The student took from the summer exhibition the tartan within “The
Widows of Culloden” collection as they felt that this inspired them as it closely linked with their punk aesthetic. Not only did the student feel inspired by this collection from all the detail within each garment but from the sheer beauty of the garments. Another collection that the student found they took inspiration from was the “Savage Mind” exhibition from the tailoring of all the garments. This was inspiration for their other culture as their modern day cultures have a lot of fitting within their garments and they felt this part of the exhibition was appropriate for their research.
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Trends What the student took from the Spring/Summer 16
trends was the idea of the high waists, 70’s flares, the movement of garments and fabric manipulation through surface details/embellishments. They felt that these aspects of that they had researched were the most valuable to their research.
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Punk
The student researched into their uncle Paul who inspired them to
have the punk aesthetic that they have today. However due to the fact that their uncle died at the young age of 16, from cancer, the student had to ask their grandparents for photographs and information on their uncle Paul to use for their research. What the student found was that they shared a lot of musical interests with their uncle and that if their uncle were alive today they’d get on very well and most probably have gone to concerts together. The student took her own aesthetic and put it into research from the lipsticks they use to their tattoos and fashion styles. After looking at the personal aspect the student then looked into the history of punk and found that a lot of tartan, leather and denim were used. The student wanted to avoid the obvious of studs, denim and safety pins so they looked further into corseting that they found was used.
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Japanese
Firstly the student looked at traditional Japanese fash-
ion and researched the kimono, this inspired them by the wrapping and large sleeves used within a kimono. After this the student had to look at all the modern day cultures within Japan to decide what would be best to use to mix with the punk culture. The student finally decided on the Gothic and Sweet Lolita cultures as they liked the style Lolita’s used and the fit of the garments. From the Lolita aspect the student wanted to use the idea of creating their own patterned fabric Lolita’s use and the fitting.
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Market Research The student went to the Harvey Nicholas store in Edinburgh to carry out
some market research for the project and to have a better understanding of high end designing. The student firstly asked the store if it would be okay to take a few photographs and was told they would not be permitted to take photos within the store. As the student couldn’t take any photos they decided to inspect garments around the different levels of the store. What they found was that they were made to a very high standard and that a lot of the fabrics used within garments were of an amazing quality and that most were ethically friendly. So from this the student decided to that they wanted to use fabrics that were long lasting and any animal based fabrics would be replaced with faux fabrics as this would appeal to a larger audience with people caring more about what they wear. The student also found that the garments were only available in a select range of sizes leaning more towards the smaller sized figure. This confirmed to the student that the idea of corseting lace up within designing would be most useful for a larger range of sizes.
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Toils When toiling the base ideas that the student had they found that the
idea of using a kimono sleeve really worked and appealed to the student. From this they then played with the fitting of their toils and what they could do for their fabric manipulation. The student had an idea for fabric manipulation, which was inspired by the surface details in the trends and the patterns Lolita’s used, to try free hand stitching on a machine over a patterned fabric to create a new warped fabric. The results of the free hand sewing over the fabric created a visually interesting pattern which was what the student hoped for. The student then wanted to make sure that they could use this free hand stitching on different fabrics so they then tested this and found that it worked well on a multiple of fabrics. Once happy with the results the student then played around with how they could use the fabric manipulation within their toiling. This lead to some interesting toils and the student finding that the free hand stitching draped well from the shoulders.
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Designs After experimenting with toils for a couple of weeks
the student then went on to designing feeling inspired from what they had gathered. They took everything they had learnt from all their research and toiling and put their ideas onto paper designing roughly 120 designs designing everything from tops, trousers, jackets to dresses, shorts, jumpsuits and skirts. Constantly keeping in mind the use of the lace up corseting and fabric manipulation the student wanted to create design ideas that could be seen in places such as Harvey Nicholas or even better as one off pieces from a catwalk collection. The student didn’t give themselves many boundaries as this was an opportunity for them to go wild and experiment.
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Final Collection The student then had to select six outfits for their final
collection that all worked well together to use for their final line up. The student wanted to select garments that would be most suitable for Spring/Summer 16 yet keep to the mix of the two cultures. Once selected the student then used CAD software to use their selected fabrics of black PVC and thin red tartan to put them in the correct places on the garments. This also included deciding were the fabric manipulation would be best used within the collection.
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Working Drawing
The student then had to select one of their six outfits
that they would take forward to make. After taking some time to decide what outfit to make the student decided on the outfit with the panelled shorts and crop top with long kimono style sleeves to make. Once this decision had been made the student then had to create their working drawing of the outfit to help them create their patterns and to understand how they would construct their garments together. The student found that this process took them some time as it was rather tedious to use the CAD software. However once done the student then took the working drawing to the workshop and found it a lot easier to make their patterns for their two garments.
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Final Outfit When constructing the two garments the student found that using the
warped fabric manipulation was a lot tougher to work with than they had originally expected, this did cause a few difficulties for the student, mainly in the crop top with the sleeves as the student struggled to get them in. However once the student overcame this problem they found the rest of the construction easy. The shorts were the easier of the two garments to make as this garment had little of the warped fabric manipulation within them. The student finally made their two garments successfully and was very happy with how they both turned out as the student finished them off to a professional standard. They felt that the two garments they had made showed their cultures clearly through the mash-up the student had used. When modelling the garments for final photographs the student wanted to play with the idea of a typical cutesy Japanese girl and a full on punk girl. After playing with different ideas the student then selected a few photographs which would best showcase their garments.
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Evaluation In conclusion to the project the student was over all happy with how
everything turned out and felt that they had successfully managed to achieve the brief they were given. The student was very pleased with how their two garments turned out as they had not only used a culture that was personal to them, but was personal to their entire family and the student felt that her uncle Paul would be proud of what she had achieved within this project. To reflect on the Japanese culture aspect of this project the student had always planned to ask their friend, who currently lived in Japan, their personal thoughts along the way as there was always a risk of causing offence using another culture that wasn’t the students. The feedback from the student’s friend was that the outfit looked very unique to anything they had seen before and that there was nothing offensive about it from a Japanese point of view. They also commented on how they liked the clever use of what they thought were polar opposite cultures being mashed together. This relieved the student and made them more confident and proud of their work. The student however did come across some difficulties within this project mainly the misunderstanding of what the student was to do for their summer project. The student feels that this area of work is their weakest and is the main factor that is letting them down with the overall project. Not only did the student want to overcome this by doing better research for their selected cultures but by having the determination to move past their mistakes and develop their work to prove they could do better. The student never gave up on their ideas and developed it all to arrive at a high quality made outfit and finalised project. If the student was given the opportunity to go back and start this project over they would re-do their entire summer project and push themselves further with it. Also they would have gathered more fabric samples for their fabric book as they felt they ran out of time to do this and that their fabric book lacked enough samples. Over all though the student thoroughly enjoyed this project more than they expected as it was something they could connect with on a personal level and just go all out there and have fun with it. They had a lot of fun making their two garments and felt that they had improved on their pattern cutting skills, construction skills and had achieved new standards for their work.
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Refrences/Bibliography
British Asian Style Fashion & Textiles/Past & Present. Hong Kong: V&A Publishing, 2010. Print. Crill, Rosemary, Jennifer Mary Wearden, and Verity Wilson. Dress In Detail From Around The World. London: V & A Publications, 2004. Print. Davies. H.. (2008) 100 new fashion designers. Laurence King. Everett, Jeffrey. 1000 Garment Graphics. Beverly (Massachussets): Rockport, 2009. Print. Gonzalez..A.M. (2012) Fashion and Identity: Identities Through Fashion.. Berg. Jnto.go.jp,. ‘Traditional Costumes’. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. Kevin T., (2009.)Fashion tribes China. Batsford. Koren, Leonard. New Fashion Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1984. Print. Lazear..S. M. (2010.) Adobe Photoshop for fashion design. Prentice Hall. Skinner, Tina. Paisley. China: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1998. Print. Vam.ac.uk,. ‘Closed Exhibition - Alexander Mcqueen: Savage Beauty - Victoria And Albert Museum’. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. WGSN Fashion Trend Forecasting and Analysis,. ‘Login WGSN’. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. Wikipedia,. ‘History Of The Punk Subculture’. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. Wikipedia,. ‘Lolita Fashion’. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. Wikipedia,. ‘Punk Subculture’. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
ALL IMAGES THAT AREN’T MINE ARE FROM GOOGLE SEARCH
Word count (not including titles): 2260
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