- Presentation about FAD plus

- Project briefing and a lecture by Alix Marie

Its my first time to try self portrait, so I’m excited. I think it will be helpful skil, in general, for fashion to think about how I can present my feeling through grafic details. What I have decided to show with the portrait is my hidden anxiety behind my appearance that looks fine. It is probably about the new life; FAD plus, BA and a single life in London.

As for inspiration for the final outcome, I am planning to refer to Yayoi Kusama. Her main concept is about illusions which she has actually been through and I think there is a common element between my mind and hers now. At least, her works called Dots Infinity and Dots Obsession have suitable visual effect for what I want to project on my portrait. Dots randomly placed are effectively shows an unstable mental status which I feel, too, these day. Therefore, I am going to develop idea with dots inspired by them and they will be the core of the design.

[Primary photos for Self-Portrait outcome]

Comparing the selfie with a mirror to 4 photos in London from distance, I have chosen the latter, because I would like to show how “small” I am, which means that I look cramped as if all the anxiety take over me. I think it worked to take photos from the other side of roads. It actually looks non-fiction which I think is a suitable effect to achieve my purpose. However, “Sainsbury’s” was not good to be seen because it unnecessarily leads people’s eyes, although the background should be the real London.  

[Development with Dots]

Reference (details in RESEARCH FILE)
- Dots Infinity, Yayoi Kusama
- Dots obsession, Yayoi Kusama

The main purpose here is to get next ideas to design my portrait. I chose the graphic work, Dots Infinity, and the special design, Dots obsession, to see how it creates, with my primary photos, the atmosphere which I want to show; the unstable mental status. As a result, it did not project something heavy like a metal (A metallic solid represents my anxiety the most as a metaphor) on the portrait, therefore I will reduce the dots and enlarge them. But, frankly speaking, “Dots” itself would be a good details to tell my feeling if I do so.

[Overall Reflection]

I enjoyed engaging in graphic medium for 3 days through this project, because I was able to try to take selfie with specific purposes such as focusing on angles to show my personality. Moreover, I am not a kind of person to use my body for visualization, therefore entire process felt something new and fresh.

As for design development, I am happy that the artist reference helped me to constantly gain ideas. Combining Dos and the primary photos, I was simply successful to multiply ideas. For example, Dots infinity and my feeling of being chased brought chaotic colour dots and finally gave me the idea to use a big black dots looked heavy. My concern is whether or not the developing process might be too straightforward to personalize my concept. Although Yayoi Kusama's works are suitable for this portrait, I feel a bit necessity to take a few more steps to conceptualize what only I feel and see, because a mental issue is quite common inspiration in art and design.

St. John’s Church (St. John’s the Evangelist)

-Primary and Secondary Research

-Collage 

About the choice, St.John’s Church.

Church is a really hard choice for me because I am not a Christian. I do not have attachment and willingness to celebrate it. Moreover, I must be sensitive not to offend them and cause any controversies about being against their rules and values. 

What I want to illustrate through the research is something mental, which is like what people inside the church feel or what the benefits are. I think these things are reflected on objects there which I might take as assets.

investigation targets 

*target which I came up with later is mentioned as (additional)

Primary

-St.John’s archway

-Flower shop (additional)

Secondary 

-St.John’s Church, St.John’s the Evangelist,

-Gospel (additional)

-Fashion design/designer/collection whose concept is Christianity

-Rose, yellow and peach (additional)

-Blue door in churches (additional)

-Morning coat, evening coat, ascot tie

[Primary and Secondary Research of the church]

-St.John’s Church

  St.John’s church, Archway, is one of churches for John’s the Evangelist, belonging to Catholic. The information about the specific history of this church is less. There is a primary school which belongs to this churches. 

 I went there to figure out the atmosphere of the church and find assets to start designing. However, few people were there including the priests. I asked them interviews, but nobody helped me. That actually gave me idea to project a sort of exclusive feeling on the final outcome design. I am still wondering why they were so unkind to me. The theory that churches usually belongs to anything (or are hardly influenced by others) does not sufficiently tell me the reasons of that. I felt something  much different, but I haven’t figured it out. In general, My initial impression towards the place was not really positive. I think “dignity” is describing the inspiration about the church well.

[Flowers and Blue doors]

What I think of as the best asset in the church is flowers, yellow and peach roses. I fel attracted by them within the empty and exclusive atmosphere of the church, and I do not think I must take design ideas only from something literal. That means I am willing to develop ideas with the flower’s colour and shapes. Some fashion brands references on my sketchbook are to help to understand how it will be like when I use the colours based on the flowers, however, I think they are unnecessary at all, because they have different concepts and themes. Rather that to do so, I should have some fabric samples or indications.

Blue door in a church has a meaning; Peace and Truth. To the contrary, the red represents Christ’s sacrifice. Celebration should be positive in some ways, therefore the blue doors are very directly suitable to be applied into my design. It is also about colour. I need to see which colour is the best on the outfits out of yellow, pink and blue.

[Collage]

The collage is basically showing my initial mood when I celebrate the church. But

I feel nothing is shown well. First of all, there is no relation with the exclusive feeling. I should not ignore it, even though the celebration is mainly positive. It might work as a colour reference later. 

-Shape

-Outcome and Peer’s opinion

-Reflection

[Design development, Shape]

I took some shapes from flowers and the building. I especially like the collar, which is coming to the front like an apron out of those design. It’s not too muscular as a detail and capturing eyes.

[Outcome and Peer’s opinion]

The outcome designs has a different detail on the hem, but still inspired by a morning coast. The shapes came from the previous designs for the shirts hem. In addition to that, I took some shapes from the architecture, because it is easier to transform physical features into design details when I want to play with shape. However I’m not happy with them. They are too much and look like costumes. Although it is supposed to be a celebration, I do not think that there is no necessity to consider a kind of functional aspect, because it is supposed to be a uniform. Actually, as I expected, both of peers disagreed to make it too gorgeous. It is not only about details, but also colours. I was quite interested in the opinion that some of the designs are fashionable but people wouldn’t like to wear. I interpreted this as that some have a appealing design details but they are uncomfortable or disturbing to wear, which is losing functions and becoming a costume. I should simplify the details to make them better.

- 3D workshop: a space/monument, architecture, fashion accessory

-Casting workshop: plaster, cement

-Printing workshop

-Reflection

[3D workshop]

• The model of a monument is made of acrylic sheet, steel and wood. I aimed to present the fact that there were many Askari soldiers belonged to Britain, which is hidden behind the common "history" we know. The wood in the centre of the monument is expressing the bullet, which represents "war" or "battle", and the pieces of steel piled around the wood bullet are expressing the soldiers. The expected materials for the monument are steel and bricks which is a common architectural material in Britain. In general, I like the idea to hide the bullet inside the UK flag, because it is directly corresponding to and showing my theme. However, it is not aesthetically fascinating, although I have not found clear reason. It might be because it does not look tidy to too much as a design in terms of colour. I am not satisfied with the visualisation idea on the sketchbook.

• The wooden piece that comprise of two types of shape was done, according to the word "built' in the article. There is no concept behind that to explain why I specifically made these shapes. It was really hard for me to do so and actually I could not gat any ideas to go further steps from the decision to build something, which means I struggled to decide materials, shape and how to "build". I noticed how much Art and Designing tend to rely on concepts or purpose. To personalise a work, investigation of the theme should be done. Especially, Art often need that to have a message, or it would be nothing for audience.        The reference of cubism and constructivism is a subordinate (secondary) inspiration to reinforce a personality of the work.

• The necklace is made of steel, too. I like this work the most out of all handiworks. My inspiration is obviously projected on the work; the selection of the fashion accessory and material, a necklace and silver steel, is relating to a dog tag for a soldier and the ruins of fire is expressing bullet holes and marks. In addition to that, the stamps of KAR explain that this is about the Askari soldiers in Britain.  Therefore, most of the design details are directly linking to the inspiration.            To transform it to be an actual fashionable accessory, I need to think about shape and size to suit it to expected outfits. It would be a bigger size to emphasis masculinity of soldiers, even if it becomes women's accessory.

[Casting workshop]

• Plaster is useful material to make permanent shape. That personality makes me wonder how I can possibly apply it to fashion clothes, because fabric is meant to be moving and plaster is totally in contrast. As for my work, I intended to make a surface (texture) of the wall inside trench on a battle field.

• When it comes to cement, I have hardly used before, and not at all with sand and stones. I am looking forward to seeing the surface, because I predict it is not smooth texture. 

[Printing]

• Manual printing was fun because I was able to make interesting effect (probably I'm just unfamiliar with the technique). Especially, I like British flag, not only because the roughness is fascinating, but also because I made something better by chance. I wondered what was going to happen if I press the paper twice as it was, and thus I made a longer red line and and rough texture of black paint, which makes it much better.

Co Create 2

[The main idea for the outcome]

We both agreed to do a kind of Installation work. It is including a garment and special elements together. The idea here came from the artworks that we found in CSM library. I think Installation is compatible with the concept of reflection, because it encourages audiences to get involved in the garment and, thus, is able to make the most of the aim. Our concern was “How”. I was unsure neither ways to mix up our aesthetic or to separate them apart. But more or less, I thought that we can present combination through materials. And I’m very willing to the opportunity to engage in different discipline from Menswear. 

The point that I felt risky was wether or not we can make a pieces in a real scale. Although we are sure about materials, we simply do not have enough time to make pieces covering the whole space. I am thinking another way to interact a garment with surroundings. 

[Design Development]

We have been literally working together even on the sketchbook. Especially it was a good idea to draw designs on Vera’s drawing, because we could visually share and developed ideas. That also helped us to understand what we each have to individually do. We have discussed in each phase and moved to next with our both recognition. I think our sketchbooks should be assessed together at once.

[Material Experiment and Making process]

I’m happy that we tested many materials. What was hard for me(for my part) was try not to be messy with multi materials, because I was intending to make pieces presenting tidiness and perfection of simplicity. I ended up to be satisfied with the canvas with an alminium sheet, but not really with the one with calico and tin foil paper. The latter one looks a bit dirty in distant and I was not happy with finishing technique, although I really like the idea. 

To be specific about my practical work, I was surprised that double sided tape worked to stick a wooden frame and an alminium sheet together. (I had to used that, because I was not able to access to the material shop in the campus). According to the technician, EVO STICK or CONTACT AOHESIUE is working onto these materials. 

[Final Outcome Visualization]

Final outcome is Installation. However it does not feel like it really is so. In our idea, the expected place is a kind of painting gallery. The two canvases are placed on  a wight wall there. So it might be better to say this is the designed background for the presentation. When the photo shoot on Friday, an actual person is going to wear the garment and we will try to capture that the wearer is interacting with these canvases.

Co Create 3

[Critique; peer’s opinion]

I hadn’t been sure about the canvas with tinfoil and calico until peers gave me their opinion. Because, as I wrote in the last reflective journal, I was not satisfied with it as much as the one with aluminium, I asked peers a question about the better selection of materials. Interestingly, they mainly appreciated that I used these materials. They also liked the idea to clearly separate our aesthetic in different ways. That means it was stronger than mixing together. I was happy about that.

[Reflection]

This project was really worthy, because I learnt to work in a different way from all the other projects we have done so far. One week was short to understand each other and complete a better creation. Throughout the project, the most important thing was to clearly recognize our status quo and what we individually have to do next, sharing the vivid vision of an expected final outcome. Having not compromised to seek the greatest possibility to coexist our contrasting aesthetic, we have been collaborating well.

However, to be honest, I haven’t felt hesitation or uncomfortable when I became to be frank to say my opinion, because I know Vera, the partner, as a friend. Therefore, I think it will be a bit harder to collaborate with a fresh person who I really don’t know. But, for sure, that will happens more in the professional world.