Project hand in and presentation in front of the whole class...

 

 

I was not too sure what to expect by walking into the classroom for my presentation today, as it's very clear to me that the students do things quite differently here. When you are used to doing things one way, it's a rather awkward feeling when you bring work that is totally different to anyone else's. Lucky for me, I didn't go first this time. During the past couple of weeks I have ben asking to look at other peoples' work, just to get some sort of rough idea of what kind of presentation is expected of me. I am used to portraying my ideas through materials, fabrics and imagery alone. Taking inspirations from various areas of design, almost everything but fashion. Here, they seem to like writing. For me this is difficult because I believe if you need to explain your ideas and thoughts then you haven't done very good research. But hey, I gave it a shot anyway, so this explains why this work is so different to things I would normally produce back home.

Then the poem that I remember from when I was younger, this inspired my design process, I thought, how could I take elements of this poem and turn them into a garment, by thinking of this it drew me on to other ideas,

Then I started on my mood boards and collecting images that I can use for inspiration. I would say that they are fairly self explanatory.

After my mood boards, I started to look and May queen inspired fashion, viewing some items by Dolce&Gabanna, and some fashion photography.

Then I remembered the Edinburgh Fire Festival, and how they feature several may queens in the display each year. I decided this was very relevant to my project and I loved the embroidery on the garments and the way the embroidered flowers only run along the bottom of the dresses, keeping the may queen in a way still traditional in the sense she is wearing mostly pale white. This then lead me onto the idea of maybe not hand embroidering the whole dress, maybe just the bottom, putting a modern twist on the traditional dress.

And now the 8 'looks' that I had to design for the 'May Queen' collection. I  don't think I have ever used such an awful mix of colours for designing before, but hey, it fits what I want it to do, so that's all that matters. This is another that I have noticed, I do things totally different, where I draw all of my illustrations myself, on the computer using various software packages, the students over here, they just take an image from a catwalk show of a model, they then draw the garment on over the top. But I really don't like this way of doing illustrations, it feels like cheating, but not in a good way either, they look like an obviously drawn on item, so really, you may as well draw the whole thing. I don't understand why not.

This was my technical drawing of my final garment. As you can see, I have changed my idea quite a lot throughout the project, I did try to do the PVC basket weave over the top of the garment, but due to lack of resources out here, and substandard machinery, I couldn't stitch the PVC together. I had to make a quick change of mind. no I knew that I wanted to use the PVC, I had to because it was the whole idea of using a modern material to represent a traditional technique. I made the decision to cut the PVC into really tiny strips getting larger at the ends and cut into shapes that represent leaves. and use the strips to make straps and shoulder decorations, and I have to say, I am very glad that I was forced to change my idea, because in hindsight, the PVC covering the entire white dress, would have been too much, and all I wanted it for was the representation of a thought.

Then came my embroidery research. I had to look at ways I could make this really beautiful but with as little time taken as possible, having done hand embroidery for many years, I know just how long certain things can take, and realistically, I am working to a very tight deadline here.

Then I was actively trying out a few techniques,  one that I have done many times before, it involves painting around the embroidery and making a smaller amount of work look much bigger, and I needed this because I was running out of time.

And here is how the bottom of the dress looked with all the embroidery and painting complete, and also where I sampled the transparency of the PVC before attempting the obviously impossible with the machines to hand.

These are the photographs from the photoshoot that I did, ok, they were fairly rubbish, but it was my intention to alter them so much that it really didn't matter about the background more about the light direction

Guess what? More problems...then a design breakthrough!

So my phone charger broke, in very predictable style of all apple products, for about 2 weeks I've been coping with my DIY jobby of stripping back the wires, twisting them together and hoping for the best...and up until now, this had been working just fine. So off the the apple store I go, feeling so poorly I had taken the day off uni, which is something I never do, I woke with aching in my whole body and feeling dizzy. 40€!!! For a charger!!! I feel like I've been robbed. This is probably why I exited the store and nearly passed out, the metro ride home was hell, it was so stuffy and hot, I made it home, just. Then slept for 12 hours straight, as I type this blog post I am still in bed. This is two days later! I just hope I'm well enough for Tuesday because I have history class then...

And not to forget the bunch of other work I have to do for Disseny de Moda projects...an update on that....I have developed my concept into a fairly good Idea I think anyway, I really love it...so much so that I intend on making the garment to my size so that I can wear it when finished with the project. The project will be based around May Day celebrations in engalnd. And a particular poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) called The May Queen. It really has captured my imagination for this garment and for the whole collection that will be designed based around it. I have presented my idea to my lecturer and he likes it, so now I have less than two weeks to get the entire project done. Made dress, and designed collection of 8 looks. Oh and also a description of the base of my project. The image above is a rough sketch of my design, its not finished and mega scrappy, I know. But at least I have my design down. There will be a plain beige cotton slip underneath that I intend on hand embroidering with a floral design to represent the May Day celebrations. The colourful structure surrounding it will be a PVC weave, basically strips of PVC hand woven together like a basket. This will represent the May pole. I am trying to take an old tradition and modernise it. So far, I think it works.

A short visit to Tibidabo

A few days ago I decided to take a short trip to Tibidabo, because in the two months since I've been here, I haven't actually done that much sightseeing. 

I took the metro to plaça catalunya and then switched to the train that goes to Tibidabo. From there I took the bus that stops directly up from where you exit the metro. I think it was number 96. But just ask at one of the stalls to the left of the metro...that's what I did haha. The bus takes you right to the funicular, then you have to pay 7.70€ I believe for a return ride up the mountain.

There is a beautiful church at the top of mount Tibidabo called Sagrat Cor, and to take an elevator up to the top it costs 2.50€ but really worth it because the view from up there will take your breath away. There are quite a few narrow stairs to climb to get right up and underneath the Jesus statue like I did, so be sure to take sensible shoes! And the exact height at where I was standing was 564.43m. The air is so fresh from this height. I didn't spend too long here though, the more I looked down the more nauseous I became. 

The fair looks straight out of the 50's era, with 50's songs playing through the park. I went for a little walk around and suggest you do the same, I suppose this is me missing the English countryside. But with all the stress and worry I have been going though with university and worry of how things are back home, it was so nice to just unwind for the day and forget all my troubles. Much like what I do back home. 

There is fantastic architecture here, something to do for the children, even a little area of wooden climbing frames and slides. Take a picnic and have it with your family in the park. It's a great family day out for all!