Week 16 | Fashion Accessories

Fashion

Our first week of fashion was certainly an interesting one. Upon reading the topic brief I realised it was a fashion accessories course which of course meant creating an accessory instead of a full garment. That wasn't so bad. I had never done fashion before and so not diving straight in and making a dress or t-shirt is a great way to be introduced to fashion.

In preparation for the lesson we were asked to assemble a collection of images based on either Art, Architecture, Science or Nature. I decided to choose nature and went straight to the library in order to get some secondary research from some of the books they have. I found a lot of images I wanted to use but I only chose the ones that seemed to have a connection.

I made use of my images and made a moodboard, mainly because that was what was required but also because it is a great way to visualise ideas and gain inspiration. The images I selected were a range of leaves that all caught my attention, the golden coloured ones are amazing and i felt it really represented some sort of embroidery as well as being a leaf. We hadn't been told what we were using the moodboards for but I tried to aim it towards fashion in some way. Hopefully looking back on it I won't regret being a little more free.

I decided to make another moodboard. Although it wasn't representative of either Art, Architecture, Science or Nature I felt it was really necessary to have in my book.

I designed this one because this is where I'd like to focus on the body. I want to create something that really accentuates the curves of the body. I felt that in order for me to try and focus on that part of the body and identify areas that I want to work on this needed to be somewhere in my book.

We were told to identify certain aspects of our moodboards. This could be a specific shape that we found interesting. Once we found it our task was to multiply it and manipulate that shape to create a new shape. I played with the scale and orientation of my chosen shape and placed it onto the body to see what I could create.

This was the area of my moodboard that I chose, it was just a snippet of one of the leaves but I chose it for the very interesting shapes within the leaves. 

I outlined the shape onto a piece of tracing paper and changed the positioning. I didn't really focus too much on the detail, I was just trying to be playful and see what I could create. 

After much experimenting I decided to take it up a notch and actually place the shape straight onto a mannequin. This seemed more effective and it definitely made the concepts look better from the introduction of colour. For this I changed the scale and orientation of the element whilst also bearing in mind how to join one part of the body to the other. I made a couple of designs similar to this.

For the remainder of the week, Thursday and Friday we were asked to bring in some everyday materials from the pound stores that we could experiment with. We had to bring in bulk quantities of whatever we bought so that there weren't any restrictions with what we decided to make. I bought in a load of a5 folders, rubber gloves and plastic cutlery.

The materials we brought were to make samples. The samples weren't anything specific but just to see what interesting shapes we could make and any wild ways we could manipulate the materials. 

These were the materials I brought in.

These were the samples that I created.

We were asked to create a minimum of 6 samples. I found the task quite demanding. This was because the selection of materials I chose really weren't the best. I failed to select materials that could easily be transformed and manipulated easily. One of the materials I brought in was a selection of plastic cutlery but because of their rigidness I couldn't really find a use for them. Every time I tried to bend them or cut them they'd snap. Eventually after many failed attempts I just gave up and decided to stick with the rubber gloves and folders. 

Once we had created the samples it was now our job to put them onto the mannequin. A quick and cheap way for us to do this was to photocopy each of our samples and attach it that way. We only had one of each of our samples and photocopying was a great way to get multiple copies that we could play with. 

It certainly felt strange using paper instead of fabric on a mannequin but the point was just to experiment and get to grips with how a fashion designer would go about designing an accessory or garment. 

These are some of the designs: