Magical Mystery - Week Six

Magical Mystery was an adventure I enjoyed as I had to do research based on my topic of work, I visited central London as its the centre of Fashion and went to department stores such as Selfridges, Liberity,Harvey Nichlos and Harrods.

My theme was to look at Culture and Colourful pieces that represented Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria either by texture and fabric or design and shape. 

I looked at their window display and tried to get influenced by the atmosphere created. in terms of colour, representation and shape. 

Selfridges

I visited Selfridges and looked at the display to see if their is a specific style that is running through October trend but all I saw was big floral decorations made out of flowers that had no connections to the latest trends but promoted Apple Watch. 

I went to the Womenswear Department and looked at styles that connected to my brief and took photos as evidence. I was thinking about colour,texture and shape, I was thinking about what related to my brief as it revolves around culture and Afghanistan etc.

 What I liked about this piece was the colour, it was a shiny metallic colour that I hardly saw on the Fashion market, the shape was very Western and therefore I thought it connected to my brief. Where the buttons was placed on the top side of the garment,I got an impression that it was influenced by the style of Japanese Kimono.

Rick Owens 

I looked at Rick Owens collection and I liked the fact that he used drapping in the same sense of how a Sari falls as a whole piece.

 The Material for the bottom was made out of Jersey, a very light and soft fabric.

Dries Van Notten

I was in love with Dries Van Notten, his work was so textured based, embellished with embroidery and simply beautiful. What really fascinated me was the use of other materials to form one piece. It gave me a very warm feeling of the Asian fashion industry. 

 I looked at the way it was produced and stitched to form the piece. It was so interesting to look at it because the stitching was not perfect but the garment was so Elegant.

Gucci

Gucci had a sweat shirt that I loved the look off because it was different, their was just a big bird in the centre of the sweat shirt which was lovely to look at because it reminded you of nature, that is environmentally friendly.

Mary Katrantzou 

Liberty

I visited Liberty and saw the window display, it was very different to Selfridges as it mostly revolved around fashion and furniture. it created a warm feeling then Selfridges.

It was my first time visiting Liberty and I was pretty surprised about the layout of the Womenswear Floor, It was dull and their wasn't much of Womenswear Designers at the Department as much of Selfridges big collection. 

This garment was so fascinating to look at, as it had trousers underneath the cape and made it look diverse but culture based. I have seen a lot of African and Indian Garments that is delivered in the same way as this.

Im just embroidery obsessed, Love the look and the feeling it gives a women in it. Very classy and retro and again my brief relates to culture wear and looking at Womenswear designers who has created that look is rather impressive because it can be interpreted in a different way.

What really made me look at this, was culture and Afghanstain, Iran, Iraq and Syria is all about colour. Traditional garments are usually very colourful and crazy and when I saw this, it just reminded me of that feeling.

Knit Wear Workshop - Week Five

Knit Wear

I was given three days to learn how to use the knitwear machine and experiment using different techniques that was demonstrated on the day. I was very surprised by how complicated it was but I eventually understood the ways around using the machine.

I learnt a range of techniques such as:
Plain Stitch
Honeycomb
Lace
Orange Peel

There was some  techniques I found difficult throughout my process of learning how to knit  but then their was some aspects which was most successful such as 'honeycomb' I really enjoyed this process it was very challenging but looked very good on yarn, it had shape and had a smooth texture. So then I decided to continue with this by experimenting it on different colour yarns addin holes here and there and creating a new style.

The worst outcome was the machine would get stuck half way through my knitting, this was a stressful moment for me because the pattern that I created had to get cut off because if you make a mistake on the knitting machine, you have reached an ending point of your pattern.

I was very scared to use the machine as I have never used it before and was nervous of making mistakes but then I realised towards the end of the Knitting workshop you need to make mistake so that you can learn from them.

After the workshop I started knitting to calibrate it with my brief and my final outcome. I was thinking about ways I could take advantage of my knitting and make my ideas come to life.