Patience is halfway to happiness

'Better late than never', 'Be patient and understanding', 'Patience is halfway to happiness'; all credible excuses, right? So I'm little delayed with my 'weekly' post but this time I have an excuse- promise. The past few weeks have consisted mainly of three main things; sewing, wrapping willow (?) and excessive coffee drinking. Sleepless nights aside (apparently I work more efficiently at 4:30 am) I've finally managed to finish my Textiles AS Level final piece. From our initial provided title of 'tailoring and haberdashery' I decided to focus on the concept of using things generally concerned with the construction of a garment e.g. dressmaking patterns, dressmaking logos, the use of lining fabric, as mere embellishment. In addition to this I've also looked heavily into Elizabethan Clothing, the emancipation of women (with the role of war) and the decline of the British Textiles industry; looking at designers including the theatrical elements of Alexander McQueen and Issey Miyake. For my piece I created a rope wrapped willow cage skirt (unintentional tongue twister...) and a dress decorated with dressmaking symbol screen prints, hand-stitched symbols and embroidered/painted logos. To create a distressed look symbolic of the decline in British Industry I burnt my fabric and used 3D texture paste to recreate the look of mould. Above are a few snaps from schools fashion show where I, and fellow textiles students, modelled their pieces. After a multitude of textiles stresses and realted incidents, the most memorable being setting off the fire alarm and thus causing the mass evacuation of my school (during exam week...), I feel like it's time to hibernate-literally.

Till, next time 

 

Unfinished

Art GCSE Exam Piece

If you didn't know already, I suppose I did complain enough, I had my 10 hour art exam at the end of April in which I constructed a dress, developed from my initial word 'canine.' From this I looked into fox hunting and my exam piece was a combination of satire imagery, screen printing and general dressmaking. I used Barbour and Vivienne Westwood as my main inspirations for the shape and style of its garment itself; I wanted to create a dress that would be worn by the woman of the manor.
Here are some photos of my piece:

Hope you're all having a great bank holiday weekend!

With thanks to my lovely model, Catherine!

Fashion Week

This week I thought I'd share not only some of my favourites designers from LFW ( WANT to go next time *hint*) but a fashion show a bit closer too home too. Do you remember my Francis Bacon inspired Carcass Dress? No, I didn't think so. Well I wore it for my school's annual fashion show; which went quite well considering my lack of co-ordination. Here of some behind the scenes snaps.

We are so Cara Delevinge

LFW- My thoughts

After spending hours going through multiple designers' shows from LFW, I've picked three which, to me, really stood out. I'm going to try and make this as brief as possible, homework is calling.

Henry Holland's House of Holland collection never fails to impress me and I certainly love his take on AW13. The youthful and, dare I use the word, urban edge of Holland's clothing I think is really effective; the mixture of rather restrained and classic garments with playful colours and patterns. The word 'psychedelic' springs to mind (I'm thinking Scooby Doo's Daphne: Austin Powers) when analysing the collection and I must myself admit that the bright colours seen in his nostalgic 70s/80s garments will not fail to brighten up what I predict to be a rather dull upcoming winter.

 If it were not for the show title on my photograph source I do not think I would have ever predicted this collection being Erdem, which I feel is a valid enough reason to blog about it. For AW13 Erdem's garments have moved away from the usual and very much expected pretty and ladylike style and moved towards a gothic, but may I say, extremely elegant look, with the occasional addition of acidic florals or feathers. So it appears it's all about the reliable and much loved black. Love, love, love.

Christopher Kane AW13, need I say more? Velvets, feathers, camouflage and 3D flowers, Kane certainly brought it to fashion week. Since becoming a massive fan of Christopher Kane (not that I've had the pleasure to wear anything of his) I've noticed that there is never anything in his collections which I wouldn't wear; occasionally, or frequently, when I fall in love with a designer's collection it is often very common for me to feel indifferent or not blown away by an item or so. The unpredictability of Christopher Kane's garments really attract me, I don't think anyone could envisage what's coming next.

May I also just take a moment to say how beautiful I thought Anne Hathaway looked at the Oscars? Top marks!

Art GCSE Final Piece

Remember me? Sorry, I know it's been a while! I thought I'd share some photographs from my GCSE final piece; a carcass applique dress, inspired by artists including Francis Bacon and Zhang Xiaotao. The aim of my final piece was to challenge/change the hushed attitude towards death and embrace it as something natural and inevitable.
 I painted the dress on to silk like fabric and attached it to a t shirt dress, giving it an asymmetric hem; I burnt the silk to seal the fabric and added boning to the carcasses legs to make them more flexible and make it look more 3D. I also attached the silk, using elastic, to make it similar in appearance to a butcher's apron from behind.
Hope you like it!

                     

Design Bundle

I was originally going to post a trio of vintage designs but after playing with the paint I decided these three would have to do.  The three designs are loosely vintage inspired; I also tried to create pieces which were slightly similar and sophisticated.

Design 1- Vintage Fur Collar Suit

For this design, I was loosely inspired by the 1920's and 30's. I wanted to try designing office wear and thought attempting to paint fur would benefit and develop my design skills. The bottom of the two piece's jacket has an alternative hem, which is slightly raised above the rest of the design.

Design 2- Houndstooth Dress

My second design was inspired by both the 1950's and 1960's; I also tried to incorporate Audrey Hepburn's style into this piece with the addition of the black satin gloves. I was interested to see how easy the houndstooth pattern would be to achieve using a paint brush (not very as it turns out!) I also chose to make the dress knee length to emphasise the classic style I was working towards.

Design 3- Fur Collar Dress

This design wasn't based on any time period in particular but vintage styles in general. Initially when painting this I was meant to be designing a coat, I found it difficult to look like outerwear and quite liked how it skimmed over the figure.






























I'll be posting another post tomorrow (hopefully) to make up for last week.
Enjoy your Saturday!