re-generate-ion

[re-generate-ion]

THE FINAL SHOOT FOR THE STARS!!

These photos are from the shoot, the beautiful Charlotte modelling for me in my corset and skirt accompanied with the sash, over all i felt this project was a brilliant challenge for myself mentally as well as creatively. The was a massive success in my eyes, I hope this has come to being very useful and interesting for those aspiring fashion designers out there ;) 

[re-generate-ion]

Well... Here we have my final piece all finished. 

After months of work i have finally got all the components together and complete to the standard i was incredibly happy with. The sash was just the cherry on the cake for me, it brought the whole outfit together and added so much emphasis to the theme of water pollution. The pure water represented by the clean crisp denim and the burnt bubbled up plastic really putting the seriousness across to people that its a massive problem that could possible be the death of the planet. My wonderful model Charlotte really extenuates the corset and skirt (made to measure her) i was incredibly happy and proud of myself for pulling something off that I thought I had gone overboard with. For my last segment of this blog are the photos from the photo shoot. (all these photos have been taken by me).

The biggest problem I faced we the fact that the sash was so delicate and couldn’t be worn for long periods of time in case of bumping it or catching it on things. I wish I could have utilised it as much as possible and make the most out of the shoot, using props or even get Charlotte outside. Other than that i felt personally this project was a massive success.    

[re-generate-ion]

For my outfit to be complete i needed a skirt. I thought about this really long and hard, i finally decided that i would be really great that i make a skirt out of a pair of jeans as i made a Corset out of a skirt. I wanted this to emphasis the fact that this could be post apocalyptic war time where people are fighting for survival and life. I wanted something that for a woman is easy to move in, denim is always being thrown away and discarded in the worst places, some types of denim has a lot of elastic in it so i used this to my advantage by making it into a mini skirt that is easy to move around in. I found a pair of old jeans from a charity shop and mad them into a skirt using the old leg material from the jeans. I stitched the part together and it worked really well, the only problem i came across was the fact that the machine couldn’t get into the corner to complete the stitch so i needed to go over it by hand just to finish it off and neaten it. I found that when making this i wasn’t very concern with straight lines and neat hems, I personally saw that is added emphasis onto the fact that its an abandoned world. I felt this really worked well for a first attempt at making a skirt from jeans.

[re-generate-ion]

These are close up photos of the sash as its beginning to take shape and form. I have added so much plastic and materials that its rather heavy.

Tyvek was one of the main components to creating the base of the sash. So I experimented with colour and embossing powder to get really unique outcomes every time. I decided to use plastic based material so that I could bond it with the pieces of plastic from carrier bags and thread. The plastic was melted with a heat gun as using a lighter would set it alight and that would be break health and safety violations. The sash was really coming together and beginning to complete the outfit.

[re-generate-ion]

SUPER MODELS!!

[re-generate-ion]

ADDING THE TASSELS - 

This has to be the most boring part of the whole project haha, i spent maybe 2 hours pulling at denim with tweezers. I had to cut the denim into segments (seen in photo 1) to make it easier to pull out the individual threads as any lager kept getting tangled up. After spending hours pulling out threads and cutting them in shape I measured them up and tacked the seam down with thread, It was time to attach them to the corset. I enjoyed this part the most as it looked great as well as completing the look, but also because it was finally finished. 

The only problem I faced with this part was just the time element, it was very time consuming which was hard as the sash needed to be finished. Other than that I felt that my decision to add the tassels and show my material skill really paid off.

[re-generate-ion]

In these experiments I was trying to decided what kind of strap I would be adding onto the corset to give it a combat look. For this experiment i thought that the brown strap worked really well, it gave the corset more of a combat/survival look, giving the model a rough and ready look which is what i was aiming for. The brown and black colours against the denim made it really hard to decide what kind of strap i was going for. 

The only problem that i came across with this experiment was the fact that the straps were slightly too short for the model and it made it very uncomfortable. After all the debating with myself and my tutors I decided to not use the straps in my final piece at all. This also meant i could put more work into the sash, which i was really glad about in a lot of ways.

[re-generate-ion]

These are photos of the corset finally coming together, the back is tied up using a scrap corset key hole laced up back using ribbon. After getting these components finished on the corset itself it was time to beginning on the skirt.

[re-generate-ion]

Right, now the tricky part... 

These photos are of the start of my corset. The first image is of the cutting out and measuring the different parts to the whole corset. Each segment is cut individually with the help of a shop bought corset to compare size and also shape. I found this part really challenging as all the different pieces had to be sewn into the right place (reason for the numbering). With each stitch I kept having to measure the size and length as well as make sure all the parts are sewn in the right place. The final part was cutting off the rough edges and evening out the lines to make sure it all fit as well as constantly measuring to make sure it looked right on the model. This part took a lot longer to complete than what was written on my timetable, this was a major set back for me as i had never done anything like that before. I began to document the set backs to keep track of what went wrong, but in the process I learnt that not everthing is going to go smoothly.  

[re-generate-ion]

[re-generate-ion]

 These photos are of my experiment boards, as you can see the first board is my deconstructed paper corset. I cut the corset into different sections to illuminate the process i used to start the denim corset, almost like a stencil so i know how big or how small I need to make the final piece, i thought this worked really well as it gave me a great idea on the size and just how much material i was going to need to use.

The next photo is all the experiments I did to see what kind of pattern and style i wanted the sash to be. For this board to really work I need to get out of my comfort zone and try out different techniques that may push my final piece to the next level. I really enjoyed this experiment because it helped me incorporate different styles and textures as well as shape into my outfit. These techniques of layering really helped me understand the fun but complex form of tassels and pleats. I decided to experiment with colour closer to the end of the experimentation, which is where the last board in the picture took me.

For this board I decided to focus on the texture and colour that the sash was going to be. I mainly used plastic based materials as they melted and bubbled giving the polluted effect on the sash. I spent a lot of time trying to get the denim to burn as its mainly cotton and dye, but once i get it slightly brown it began to crumble so i had to be quite careful. I used a heat gun to direct the hot air so I ended up with bizarre shapes and sizes. 

I really enjoyed creating these experiments with different material and plastics. The material properties changed completely when heat was applied. The plastic would bubble and almost turn liquid, this meant that I was able to combine the plastics with other plastics or even other materials and clothing. This binding process created really interesting combinations that gave me great ideas for my sash. Tyvek was one of the main components to creating and designing the base texture for my sash. I began to experiment with colour and embossing powder, i got really unique outcomes every time.      

[re-generate-ion]

VOGUE ITALIA - Oil Spill Shoot

There's no denying that the images from the oil spill editorial in Vogue Italia 's August 2010 are beautiful. The 24 pages of Kristen McMenamy, shot by Steven Meisel, are realistic interpretations of images of injured, oiled animals that have inundated the news media since the Deep-water Horizon explosion in April. As beautiful and provocative as they are, we can't help but feel uneasy. Creating beauty and glamour out of tragedy seems quite fucked up to us, not to mention wasteful and hypocritical, seeing as thousands of dollars of luxury clothing was flown in, and then subsequently ruined for the shoot.    

[re-generate-ion]

Jane Bowler 

Jane Bowler established her studio in London in 2011 with ambitions to be an innovator in luxury fashion, accessories and textile design.  Driven by a passion for process, materials and craftsmanship; the studio creates unique tactile surfaces and constructed textiles which naturally evolve into what Bowler refers to as ‘wearable art’.

The thought of someone designing ‘wearable art’ sends our imaginations into overdrive. It is the dream combo. Jane Bowler is the exploring designer behind the hybrid, transforming mundane, everyday items (she has used a shower curtain before) into encrypting headpieces, strapping chokers and metallic sculptural two pieces. She is constantly discovering innovative processes and materials to intricately work into her garments that she delivers each season. Her developed signature style of using plastics and fringing effects is still clearly evident whilst pairing together interlocking chains, knits and dense metals Bowler has created a uniform for an empowered, self-determining woman that are immediate head turners.

[re-generate-ion]

WELL....

If you knew it takes almost a kilo of cotton, 10,000 litres of water, and countless hours of labour and skill to make a single pair of denim jeans, wouldn’t you want to make sure they never end up in landfill? 

[re-generate-ion]

EXPERIMENTATION

For this part of the project i have decided to mimic the look of oil or tar by mixing black acrylic paint and ink with a bit of water. By pouring the mixture on the jeans I create the affect of oil spilled jeans. I felt the blue of the jeans really helped the emphasis of water pollution and oil spills, I didn’t do many other experiments like this as I wasn’t too happy with the outcome. Although this project was based on oils spills and pollution I felt that this affect didn’t work as well as I would have liked. The messiness didn’t appeal to me as much as I would have hoped. I felt like i had no control when it came to adding the oil spills (acrylic paint and water). I had to make a tough decision to leave the oil spills out and add them into the sash. i thought that this almost worked even better in emphasising the appearance of oil spills and plastic waste.