Market Research

This week I have been focusing on my garment research and to help me I have been going to Julie’s fashion workshops. The main aim from the workshops was to carry out some market research by visiting a number of retail outlets looking specifically at sportswear with a high fashion emphasis. I looked particularly ay Adidas and Nike to identify what trends are popular and already in use. I also ventured around koral Active wear. This investigative process was time consuming as it was necessary to understand and process exactly what fabrics, textures and linings were used. My research including photographs showed that sportswear colours are generally bright and vivid. They tend to use material that is stretchy and flexible for the user. It was clear that the linings were all achieved using an over locker. Also, the majority of the sportswear did not have a great degree of detail in its design and in the main displays as a bold plain design structure.

Research & Design

I want my sportswear to be high end so I have been looking at Stella McCartney  and Mary Katrantzou .I have started an early process of digital designing as I think it is important for my work to design digital designs whilst generating new  drawings.  This will give me time to reflect on my print designs as I am creating more visuals. Within my drawings this week I have been focusing more on my floral detailed drawing, which takes considerably more time. For my floral drawings I use a 0.5 black pen, because the flowers are so detailed they work successfully as digital print designs.

After my tutorial, my tutor introduced me to a fashion design company called  theunseen  that uses thermochromics in their high fashion wear. Thermochromics is a type of ink that changes colour either with heat or light. This is beneficial for me and will help me understand how the ink looks visually on a garment and how it can be constructed.

Sports & Flora's Direction

For the third year of my degree, I want to specifically focus on the fashion film element of my studies. This is motivated by the fact that I envisage myself working in this area as a serious career. I also want to create various pieces of sportswear garments aimed at women, which will inform the fashion film making process. I have chosen to do sportswear  as exercise and sports has become  very important for society and the welding of this generation. I want to create a type of wear that will enhance sporting ability. I am particularly interested in creating a type of up and coming trend, which will stand out amongst its competitors by being practical and visually pleasing. I want to look into light sensitive sportswear such as reflective clothing for people who exercise outside at night, UV sensitive sportswear and also sports wear that changes colour with the heat of the body using thermochromics . Sensitive materials will be used to improve safety and will protect the body during over exertion. Certain sportswear materials such as Nike and Adidas provide small holes that help the skin to breathe more effectively and assist in temperature regulation. I will take this into consideration and experiment with different materials used for sporting clothing alongside my developing print designs. My overall long-term aim is to create a collection of sportswear. However. if this is not successful due to other academic demands, I hope to have constructed at least some garments and also a fashion film that could lead into unit X. 

Over the summer I have focused my drawing on church imager and florals . This inspiration has come from my internship I was successful in carrying out at Mirjam Rouden in central London over my time there I took part in doing all sorts of print jobs. One of my jobs was to draw for new print designs, the topic was florals. I found I have skill with drawing detailed flowers and I would like to carry this on into my print designs in this project. After discussions in my tutorial, I decided to investigate and focus my efforts on modern as well as historical architecture. The concepts of heat and light sensitive sportswear was also discussed during the session. I have decided to look into a printing ink that has the capacity to change colour in response of temperature changes in the body. It was also aware that this year is to focus my film making and editing skills with an art direction, Over this Project I plan to develop my filmmaking skills and come up with concepts that reflect my print design and fashion work.

Film of churchs

 

 Primary Research

church Pattern

 I wanted to capture the shapes and patterns of the church through a motion of film. I have layered different clips of the shoots I took at the Bristol cathedral to create a moving repetitive pattern. I did this to create my own inspiration of how I can create different designs within my collection. I also want to develop this film into a projection and film a model with a white garment as the projection of the different shapes and patterns project and move across her body. I will be doing this so I can get a better understanding how the prints can be displayed across the body form and onto a garment.  I have used free royalty music for this film from Moby’s website as for my more developed and important films I will be collaborating with Oisin who writes his own music but this process of film I have worked on now is just for my own research and concept

Churches

Primary Reasearch

Through my second year project I have based my print designs and drawing on modern or historical architecture. I will be carrying on this concept but through historical architecture of church vaults. I have chosen this concept as I have always been inspired by church vaults and have felt that I could create dynamic and rhythmical designs with this type of concept. I have been to the Bristol cathedral and I was able to take some photographs of the ceiling. I wanted the capture the different shapes, lines and patterns the vault demonstrates, this will be applicable for when I start drawing or designing from these photographs as the shapes demonstrate complex structures.

Mirjam Rouden Interning

Mirjam Rouden

Interning

This week I focused on pen drawing different types of flowers. I spent all week on these two drawings. I wanted to make these designs as detailed and life-like as possible. I looked into science books and books of flowers from the book shelf at Mirjam Rouden for inspiration of designing flowers. As this week they were getting ready so sell their collection to somewhere abroad groups of interns including myself were told to cut fabric digital samples ready for their sale. From looking at the new collections it has inspired me to create designs that are complex and dynamic.

Mijam Rouden Interning

 Mijam Rouden 

Interning

In the second week of my internship I was told to do more maintenance work. That involved cleaning screens with a water jet. This was quite long and tiring work but through this process it has helped me to understand how to clean a screen properly when taking off the old print design and the chemicals that are used to clean the screen until completely see through. I was then told by Cindy to focus on more intricate flower drawings with colour and tones. The drawings that I do will then be scanned into the computer and the team of designers will mock up print designs with my and other intern’s drawings. I feel like this process of drawing has helped me to create more intricate and refined work that I want to create in the process of my degree work.