Degree Show Catalogue 2022 School of Design
BA (Hons) Communication Design BA (Hons) Fashion Design BA (Hons) Interaction Design BA (Hons) Interior Design BA (Hons) Silversmithing and Jewellery Design BA (Hons) Textile Design BEng & MEng (Hons) Product Design Engineering MDes Communication Design
Introduction A warm welcome to the 2022 School of Design degree show. This is my first year as the Head of Design and I am delighted to have joined the Glasgow School of Art and to be leading a world class school of talented students and inspiring staff. This year we are delighted to fully return to a public exhibition in the Reid Building for all our graduating students work after a two-year hiatus. We hope you will have the opportunity to experience the work in person and in-situ as you move between rich sensory experiences across our stunning building. Our school is one of design and making, equally committed to what is an affirmative creative process of production and consideration of all media, objects and artefacts across a range of locations and/or scales. The process of designing, discussing, and making work in our studios engages our senses and is a rich tactile material experience for all our disciplines.
Professor Stephen Bottomley Head of the School of Design
The work is a celebration of each student’s individual achievement, the show a reflection of our creative community. Sharing these very human and social dimensions of our practices is a great pleasure, especially after a time of social distancing when many of these types of natural engagement were not possible or simply not permissible. This year, for the first time, the School of Design is creating matching printed handouts for all our departments, that collectively document a snapshot of the class of ’22. Our parallel on-line digital showcase, each has a page individually curated by our students, that contains further opportunities for exploration into the work of each of our graduate’s portfolios. I wish all our graduates every success and congratulate them on the culmination of their studies over what have been such recent challenging times for all.
Design History & Theory As part of their degree, all BA Hons School of Design students submit a substantial piece of written work to the Department of Design History and Theory (DH&T) and a synopsis of every one is included in these pages. Students may opt for either a shorter (5,000 word) or longer (10,000 word) submission, the latter being a third of their overall degree submission. In addition to the two lengths, there are three different modes of submission; essay/dissertation; critical journal (exploring the author’s studio practice in a larger critical and cultural context); or curatorial rationale (an in-depth proposal for an exhibition with its subject and venue the choice of the author). All DH&T staff are involved in the supervision of Honours submissions, which is on a one-to-one basis, and it is always a pleasure to guide what is always a wide range of fascinating and challenging projects. DH&T is independent of studio, with its own external examiner, and upholds a principle of free subject choice. Therefore, while some students write on topics directly concerned with their studio practice, others explore topics that seem to have no bearing on it, often personal interests or socio-cultural issues. This does not mean they are unconnected with studio, however, as the creative process is one of thought and all these submissions are deeply thoughtful, often informing practice in intangible, but significant ways. Nicholas Oddy Head of Department of Design History & Theory
Finally, congratulations to everyone who has submitted this year. As a group you have generated almost a million words, testament to your commitment to DH&T. On behalf of all in the Department, good luck in whatever the future holds. ↘ ↘ D ↘ ECR ↘ ECJ ↘ EE ↘ CR CJ
Curatorial Rationale Critical Journal Dissertation Extended Curatorial Rationale Extended Critical Journal Extended Essay
Fashion Design Final year students in the Department of Fashion and Textiles have made it to the end! The academic experience of the Class of 2022 has been like no other we have ever known. I wholeheartedly congratulate each graduating student on their extraordinary achievements, for their perseverance and resilience. The way they adapted to unheard of ways of learning and the support-through-adversity they showed each other has been an inspiration. They have proven that there is nothing they cannot accomplish in the future. When life inevitably confronts them with challenges, I hope they will draw confidence from this very real lived experience. They’re going to be amazing.
Professor Jimmy Stephen-Cran Head of Department, Fashion and Textiles
“There is nothing they cannot accomplish in the future”
Anna Rowland This Project explores interruptions in the environment; natural and manmade. The research for the collection is derived from a walk up “The Cobbler”, Arrochar, Scottish Highlands. Supported by research into photographer Jungjin Lee. These interruptions are explored through print, allowing the textile to inform the design process and lead the silhouette. Employing the use of negative space and reflections to explore the fluidity and breaks between the body and the space it is a part of.
↘ The Revenge Dress: An Uncomfortable Legacy in the Early 21st Century: How much power was ever in the woman’s hands? This essay explores what makes a successful “Revenge Dress”. In doing so, it tests where the act of revenge dressing benefits and fails women. Examples of revenge dressing is highly visible in the media and is discussed in the essay with reference to specific writings (Turner, Graeme 2014). Using princess Diana as a key example, the research for this essay explains the importance and significance of conventional of attractiveness for women across multiple aspects of their lives. The conclusion suggested in the essay is that Revenge Dressing is a result of internalised self - objectification, and therefore women are unable to escape the perimeters of the male gaze. EE
Annabelle Banner Analysing the state of the world as it is today, it’s possible to perceive ourselves as existing in a post-utopian era. Theoretical and artistic responses are tasked with reimagining the human substance and its position in this world. Visions of the future are heavily loaded with irreversible ecological changes, unjustifiable conflict, and consequence. Despite this, a connection with the world around us starts from within. Porcelain Dolls, not only a personal reflection of my childhood, are also societal expression of beauty installed at a young age. The way I’ve worked with these dolls is not only an expression of myself, it’s also an expression of the history of many other women. Where the dolls have broken, I have fixed them with golden glue. This is a statement of potential better global futures, and also a commentary on the self. Our connection with the world starts from within. ↘ To what extent can Iron Age Artefacts give us an accurate depiction of Artistic Material Culture? My dissertation provides an artistic and anthropological perspective on Iron Age Scotland. Looking at artefacts in terms of material culture, I consider whether these artefacts hold their own agency or have agency projected upon them? There is a beauty and intrigue to complicated questions and the potential to discover more about human nature is what draws me to pre- historical material culture. Looking at Iron Age material culture from the perspective that stems from a design background allows me to evaluate artefacts in an alternative light to highly experienced archaeologists and academics. D
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Hannah Scorah Hannah Scorah is a Fashion Designer, specialising in Menswear. Her work focuses on the performative aspects of design, whilst remaining true to traditional tailoring techniques. This material contrast makes way for a narrative of theatre and inclusivity. Hannah visually distorts and rebuilds archetypes through disproportionate ratios and drape. Taking much of her inspiration from the imagery of the Ballet Russes and the Bright Young Things, Hannah is interested in the idea of ‘dress-up’ as a means of self-expression. She explores, through her collections, how this notion can be applied to everyday garment-wearers: “the theatrics of contemporary life”. D ↘ The Bride and her Wedding Dress : A Feminist critique on the role of The Bride and her Wedding Dress in relation to the identity of the female in western culture. This essay investigates the role of ‘The Bride and her Wedding Dress’ in western culture amongst feminist discourse. In offering a feminist critique, I evaluate to what extent the figure of the bride acts as an oppressor of the true female identity. This is explored particularly in reference to the second wave movement of feminism, which saw a shift of mass-momentum in the changing of attitudes towards gender roles. It is through this lens that I examine the fluctuating significance of ‘The Bride and her Wedding Dress’; in its origins, its role in protest, and its presence in the contemporary.
↘ hannah.scorah@hotmail.co.uk ↘ @drawingscorah
Julia Knie At the airport. Rhythmic dissonances and anachronisms: – that’s when I feel the most calm and concentrated. In one hand a laptop - currently running a statistical data analysis program with another tap open for an ongoing video rendering project. A television screen in the background showing Covid infection rates and a European bin full of discarded smartphones from Middle Eastern refugees. ‘Why Fashion design now?’ An environment that reeks in sacrality from overload and mishaps. Heavy and charged with overlapping energies, smells, voices, lights and movements. I seek after these situations to calm a beating heart. ↘ Fashioning Cinematic Plastic Poems – A critical contemplation of fashion design practise today. A television screen in the background showing Covid infection rates and a European bin full of discarded smartphones from Middle Eastern refugees. ‘Why Fashion design now?’. An environment that reeks in sacrality from overload and mishaps. Heavy and charged with overlapping energies, smells, voices, lights and movements. What safeguards us when everything escalates? What are the mostunexpected synergies to create newly cohesive bonds and a visual language thatis finally trustworthy again? ‘Crash 4th year BA Collection’ and the accompanying extended critical journal uses a fashion-based language to construct new physically stimulating hopes for a dystopian tale. This journal takes me on a journey to revisit the major paradigm shifts in Fashion design from the 1980s to the 2020s – from interdisciplinarity, and a critique on resource-conscious modes of production over to 2D reduction in form – and to respond to them with my own voice and design processes. Can the crisis that Fashion design finds itself in today be overcome by new approaches to design processes that honour the very strength and core of the subject area? ECJ
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BA (HONS) IN FASHION DESIGN
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BA (HONS) IN FASHION DESIGN
Laura Porter My project for 2022 has been ‘Symbols vs Symbolism’. It has been purely experimentation between these two words and is in answer to ‘What possible outcomes exist in the space in-between?’ I have found this project relevant at a time of purely divisional thinking and a need to balance growing total extremes and opposites. Grounding this concept with traditional menswear cutting and inverted traditional aspects of fashion design has provided a new dynamic of construction that challenges and diversifies the possibilities of clothing and its social meaning to the world. ↘ The Beginnings of Fashion Shows: An investigation of how fashion shows came to be performed as part of an ongoing ‘spectacle’ in Paris. This essay explores the circulating themes of Paris as a European capital city and its relevance to the emergence of the fashion, development, display and presentation. The first chapter describes the history of Paris and its emerging art and culture, before 1925, specifically around the ideas of the expositions, international exhibitions and politics of spectacles. Subheadings are included in decoding each relevant subject I have found related to the title. The second chapter discusses the themes pertaining to the 1925 international exhibition with concluding evidence of theories mentioned in Chapter one. EE
Leeka Ndure My project looks at how the three-piece suit has been worn in black communities over the past decades, and the reinterpretation of how it should be worn, when and where. There was an obvious preference for more exaggerated silhouettes like wide/bell-bottom trousers and sleeves and very broad lapels. The 70’s pimp culture is another that took dressing up the suit to another level with the influence of West African Royalty attire, draping style and jewellery. They wore heavily detailed fabrics/patterns and motifs worn on top of a suit as an overcoat and throw. This is because, in some West African cultures, fabrics are used to tell stories about the owner and their family through the use of symbols and motifs, and should be always worn on top of everything else and celebrated. ↘ The Importance of Representation and Inclusion in the Fashion Industry. My extended essay looks at why creating as much inclusion and diversity in the fashion industry is crucial to the eradication of beauty standards, which can be very damaging. It dives into how fashion companies are handling this new demand for change and what today’s generation is asking of them. It also looks at how some of these brands use political issues to make sales. The essay is in three parts, the first looks at the changes in the industry and how far it has come. Then we talk about brands “woke-washing” to attract customers. Finally, why inclusion matters and how it can be beneficial to society and companies. EE
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Lisa Manastireanu In a society powered by consumerist culture - focused on celebrating the new and moving on from the old - we often forget to appraise the value of the many things we already have. This was the main takeaway from the re-exploration of my Romanian heritage and the rediscovery of my ancestral traditions. For my final collection, revisiting the lessons I subconsciously learned from my Romanian family’s approaches to fashion allowed me to find a deeper context to my interest in the fashion industry - a realisation reinforcing the “why” in my approaches and construction processes. ↘ Fashion Sustainable Practice. This extended essay identifies the reasons why we must be more sustainable, with relation to the fashion industry in particular. Importantly, the essay explains the consequences of not challenging unsustainable practices in fashion. The essay highlights some innovative approaches that are currently being practiced. Comprised of two chapters, the first suggests a definition of sustainability as a broad term, uncovering the reasons why we have not progressed further, and the ways in which fast fashion plays a role in this. In the second chapter solutions to these problems, social, environmental, and economic are described, and the ways that a number of sustainable fashion companies are implementing changes to their standard practices explained, in order to promote and support the sustainability movement going forward. EE
Andrea Xinjing My graduation work is inspired by a wedding attended by my mother. I try to discuss the constraints of career and marriage on women from my cultural perspective. Through the combination of the wedding dress and the power suit, I will explore women’s contradictory psychology in the face of marriage and career choice, and oppose the revival of traditional gender roles. I want to encourage women not to give up their careers and to be independent. From my perspective, the differences between my mother as a working woman before and after marriage reflects the different identities and voices of Asian women. ↘ Firstly, what is the deconstructive garment? “Deconstruction” is a word from postmodern philosophy and architecture, introduced to the fashion industry. The deconstruction of traditional-style clothing and costumes are different styles, and this kind of fashion brings different fun to consumers. This critical journal comprehensively explores the development and practice of deconstruction in the field of garment modeling based on my understanding of deconstruction. It is not a fixed way of thinking. According to the designer’s understanding of design, different designers will produce different formal languages for clothing deconstruction design.For example, Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela, and Alexander McQueen are deconstructionists in the stereotype of practitioners. Their design enriches the language and methods of clothing design; gives it more artistry and serious significance. I deliberate my experience of design from these three designers as case studies of ideas and methods of deconstruction. This guides the development of my collection on graduation. Finally, I define my practice and its reliance on deconstruction, to study the methods and attitude of reversed thinking that allows me to deduce the aesthetics and meanings of garments. CJ
↘ andrealiu1939@gmail.com ↘ @andrea_liu1939
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BA (HONS) IN FASHION DESIGN
Luukas Nuotio In Finland men have to undertake mandatory military service from when they turn 18. I am against the military service I am required to do which is why this collection has personal meaning to me. Taking inspiration from military clothing, this collection will contain the sense of the timelessness and longevity that military clothing has. In contrast, the collection’s colour pallet will include a lot of whites which represent peace, surrendering and vulnerability. This collection is a representation of the fight against the society and a sophisticated way of giving the finger to the Finnish government. ↘ This critical journal focuses on the development of my unisex clothing collection consisting of six looks. The collection takes inspiration especially from Finnish military clothing among other historic military uniforms. There is a focus on the Finnish military, as it is mandatory for me personally to take part in military training in Finland, as it is for all men over 18, which I find to be an unjust system. This is why the collection is called Rauha (peace in Finnish). The connotations of uniforms are explored especially through key texts such as Uniform: Order and Disorder and The Cultural Politics of the Uniform. The collection is not in praise of the military, but criticises the norms in that culture. As sustainability is a key issue, military uniforms are explored with a focus on their timelessness and longevity. There is a juxtaposition between taking inspiration from traditional military clothing whilst critiquing the violent nature of the military. A way in which the collection tries to implement this aspect is by using the colour white as the main colour of the collection, as white represents vulnerability, surrendering and peace. CJ
↘ @luukas.nuotio
Lydia Gough My collection explores the relationship between fashion, the body and medicine. Displaying the history between art and medicine, the Italian polymath da Vinci claimed to have dissected more than thirty corpses for anatomical studies and artistic offerings. Viewed through a medical lens, fashion offers theories of how one dresses, and how cognitive behaviours create trends and fabrics with physical and psychological benefits. For example, compression clothing improves athletic performance, decreases injury, assists varicose veins, leg ulcers, DVT etc. Using the ideas of compression clothing, I have created a combination of tight and warped knitted fabrics that mirror the body. ↘ Pretty or Painful? The Medical Implications of Fashion on the Body. This extended essay dissects the ways in which the fashion industry has affected the human form. The paper investigates how three key areas of the industry may have been the catalyst for medical implications on the body. It compares past examples of medical discourse to the modern solution, or ongoing issue, of this past problem. I first reflect on both previous and current influences of fashion trends on society. The popularity of contracting consumption in the nineteenth century is then compared to how modern-day media has affected the consumer’s perception and relationship with one’s body image. I then investigate how garments and fabrics have been used to physically alter and distort the body. In comparison I look at the subversive, and how compression has been utilised in industry to improve one’s health. Finally, I give a historical overview of the development within textile production for the fashion industry, exposing the use of chemical dyes over the centuries, and how this effects the physical body and our environment. EE
↘ lydiagough99@gmail.com ↘ @lydia_lg_design
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Millie Gladwin To Make Amends for the traditional male gaze, I have put women’s wants and needs at the forefront of my decision making, and to Make Amends for the environmental impact of fast fashion, I have used a variety of different crafts to repurpose second-hand fabric. My collection is inspired by kitsch imagery and the ‘make do and mend’ movement, to create clothing which empowers the wearer and is a source of sheer entertainment and joy. ↘ Exploring Feminist Theory in Relation to the Beauty Industry and Women’s Mental Health. This dissertation explores the relationship between education, feminism, mental health and the pressures the patriarchy and beauty industry control women with. Research included in-depth, qualitative interviews with eight feminists. I explore and realise this dissertation using the six hours of transcribed interviews backed up with theories from published feminist theorists and cultural context. I compare the education that was given to these women to the current PSHE (Personal, social, health and economic education) syllabus using the national curriculum and speaking to a PSHE teacher. Exploring these various avenues has given me a picture of what my generation’s PSHE education was and what it was lacking. I discover what should be educational priorities and the benefits this would have given to the lives of women. D
↘ marthamgladwin@gmail.com ↘ @millie_martha_gladwin
Rosie Ridley ‘When you seek out elemental nature, make sure to shield yourself from the elements; do some forest bathing, but only when the rain can’t get in.’ There is a symbiosis between clothing and the natural world. The fibres from the earth, spun into cloth, are worn to protect us from the very elements used to grow the materials we adorn ourselves with. My graduate collection illustrates acts of meditation in natural surroundings, stimulating our senses and producing positive effects on our mind and body. By provoking the effects of forest bathing through the way we dress can achieve total euphoria? ↘ Fashion and Nature in the Pursuit of Happiness. Is nature the key to happiness and can this be executed through the way we dress? This Critical Journal reflects on my studio practice and how my previous work has informed my approach to creating my final year collection. First, I establish the primary influences on my design practice. Designers such as Alexander McQueen and Rei Kawakubo have been a source of inspiration. I intend to question the ways I resonate with these designers and how my work differs from theirs. Key theories that motivate my work include sustainability and conscious design; I investigate how these inform my studio practice. I then analyse key projects from my time at GSA. Pivotal studio projects are examined to discover what has stayed consistent throughout my work and what has changed. From there I report on how the questions I proposed in previous projects currently inform my graduate collection. I try to find the harmony between form and function that have previously been conflicting themes with my work. In conclusion I evaluate why I believe a postgraduate course in tailoring would assist future development. CJ
↘ rosieridley.co.uk ↘ rosiejridley@gmail.com ↘ @rosemary.ridley
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Sophie Jenkin My work as a fashion designer blooms at the intersection of narrative worldbuilding and a celebration of traditional craftsmanship. My graduate collection traces my ancestry to Brittany, France and dips beneath the generational layers, exploring spiritual archetypes of the collective unconscious as proposed by the psychologist Carl Jung. As the oyster scars into pearl, so the alchemy of memory becomes spirit and through tailored layering I convey an amalgamation of both past present and imagined future. My interest in forging a relationship with my materials propelled me to develop my own textiles and this process has been profoundly therapeutic.
↘ This critical journal is an exploration into the intentions behind my creative practise, with the goal of discovering my authentic self. Based upon the experience of using creative practices as a reflection of one’s emotional state as well as providing a traceable narrative. For me, creativity is the truest form of human expression. Pure and honest, I see each piece of work as a window into the artist’s soul. I define authenticity, then, taking a phenomenological approach, I seek to explore the different methods of various designers and artists who I believe share a profound emotive quality within their work, and those whose body of work creates a coherent personal narrative as opposed to being informed exogenously by trends. I am inspired by truthfulness in sustainability and look to the pioneers who I believe are making aspirational strides in serving humanity towards a sustainable future. Discussing the contrasting philosophies of authenticity of Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I examine the concept of authenticity from many angles, before discovering that it perhaps is not as definable as I first proposed. CJ
Wan Ziqang ‘The Knot’ is a project about the decade of civil unrest that lasted under Mao’s leadership after the founding of New China - the Cultural Revolution. My research begins with written and pictorial accounts of this period, using design narratives to express totalitarianism and the pervasive suffocation under the spreading redness by rearranging the meanings carried by the basic elements of clothing: buttons and pockets in a characteristically bureaucratic context. In the ‘knot’, the garment wears the body, fates are tightly intertwined. ↘ Knots of Home. Fashion is a way of restoring a shattered identity. In today’s China, the expression of individuality is highly liberalised, compared to the scenes of people hoping to hide in the crowd in Mao uniforms like ‘blue ants’ at the time of the Cultural Revolution. The class contradiction between the ‘proletariat’ and the ‘bourgeoisie’ in the Chinese context and the new energy and life which burst out from a new political regime is the subject of this Critical Journal. Using clothing narrative stories, particularly the thematic ideas and conclusions relating to my undergraduate practice, my critical journal combines textual analysis on postcolonial theory, semiotics, sociology, and the history of the Cultural Revolution to position my work. In the same year, an internship in a local niche clothing brand, helped to contextualise my practice further. Finally, I record the background and theoretical support behind my current graduation design series, and re-examine the meaning of clothing in the process of developing individual identity. CJ
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Cover image: Rosie Ridley Studio Photography: Alan McAteer Staff Portrait photography: Shannon Tofts Design: Kat Loudon and Phoebe Willison Headline is Triptych by The Pyte Foundry. Printed by The Newspaper Club on 55gsm improved newsprint. All work shown remains the property of the designers and may not be reproduced in print or any other media without written permissions. Contact details for all work is provided on each page for any enquiries.