reflections

I started the project today as I took a 3 week sabbatical and then had a delayed portfolio request

Tuesday 19th march: Today I came back from a long break from university, I had to take a 3 week break as my squat was getting evicted, therefore I'll be starting my reflections from now, I also had my portfolio hand in delayed as I handed in my UCAS stuff late, my portfolio hand in was a day ago.

Action plan:

Tuesday evening: research some themes I might be interested in doing a project about, think about your life recently and what's been an interest to you!

Wednesday: draw visuals from the themes you decide on

Thursday 21st march : Within the first few days of conceptualising this project I understand that I want to make this project about Carnivalism and the celebration. I came up with this after having a series of peculiar dreams about my friends and I in carnivalesque situations where our relationship and how we acted toward eachother was completely different. It reminded me of learning about Bhaktins theory of carnival when I was doing A level English, Bhaktins theory of carnival is a good starting point for my research, I'm going to look at different points in history when this applies to continue my research.

Monday 25th march: I looked at all of my research images with Dom, he categorised them into groups and asked me what each of them have to do with eachother, I found this exercise very helpful because it allowed me to ascribe themes to the project and visualise the different routes it can take me, leading on from this I'm going to do some styling inspired by the different piles of photographs that I had layed out on the table

Tuesday 26th march: I wrote my personal project proposal today, I enjoyed writing an essay about my project because I much prefer explaining things in words, also reading my friends was helpful to making mine better and speaking with my tutor was also helpful, he said I should try and style my freinds in carnivalesque outfits / geish that went along with my research, I'll do this over the next few days.

Action plan: Tuesday night: sort out the living room so you can have your fabrics and pieces organised in a way where they will be easy to style with and organised

Wednesday night: fill out some more of your research file

Thursday: style flatmates in looks that align with your research of Carnivalism, find things you've made that reflect fun in different cultures

Thursday 28th march: I styled my flatmates today, I chose the looks based off of colour and any items that evoked joy and went along with the whole look. I did a red look with a devil bra I made out of popping candy packets, I also used an old bedsheet and a hat from project U. For the other look I used some old scarves, an oodie, a banana plushie and some head accessories. I enjoyed these looks but prefer the old world carnival aesthetic alot more and want to lean more so into that, to get past this I'll research some older carnivals and lean more into my vintage aesthetic.

Action plan: Friday: go to university and print the styling pictures

Saturday: collage them with other things in your project and read back over essays you wrote about Carnivalism during GSCES

Sunday: look at old world carnival costume and see how I can style my friend in that sort of thing with her fabrics

Sunday 31st march: I continued styling my friends and used my friend Ysohnt's wardrobe to figure out styling, this helped alot having free reign over someone else's geish, I liked playing around with her stuff because her style gives carnival in an old fashioned way that I find to be very fitting with some of the things I researched in this project. I styled 2 looks, one was big and drapey and mostly brown coloured, with texture and different items pinned to her (like a knife, a mask, hair, etc) to resemble costume. For the second look I leaned alot more into the costume, colourful and carnivelsque side because I used a dragon mask and small horse bunting and lots of different colours. As a way of merging all of these things I will combine different elements of both looks to create a third, fully formed idea.

Monday 1st April: Today I pasted all of the images I have so far into my sketchbook and collaged with them, this is the first time I've actually enjoyed doing this and was shocked I actually had fun doing it, I kept the images mostly in the groups that me and Dom sorted through but I combined some of them with eachother to create apposing themes in one image and I liked the way that looked. To continue ill start writing action plans and style more based around old world carnivals

Tuesday 2nd April: Today I started spontaneously making things instead of doing fabric samples, I came up with the idea today that I'd incorporate the theme of costumes from the past into my look, I though it would be funny to self reference and reference a 'costume from the past' whilst being here at CSM, I never got to physically make my multiples project which I was really excited about and sad we didn't have to physically execute, I decided to start stitching keys onto a bra because I thought it would look cool, really just an impulsive first thought but I really like the way its turning out so far, over the next few days im going to keep on stitching the keys onto the bra.

Thursday 4th April: Today I saw some besties at my flat and decided to sit and embroider my key bra whilst I sat and talked, I found it very therapeutic and really enjoyed doing it, I finished the embroidery in the evening and put a bit of spray paint on some parts of the bra. I also stippled gold paint over the seams but it looks quite tacky at the moment and I'm going to do my best to rectify that tomorrow

Friday 5th April: I woke up and realised I had to spray the silver paint at a distance away from the bra over the gold parts so it reads more as natural wear/tear/rust rather than an intentional thing, this looks alot better

Action plan : Friday night: tidy up the living room from making the bra

Saturday night: watch some fashion shows

Sunday - Monday: workflow

Tuesday 9th April: I started making a pink 2 piece today, the idea was to - in a very ready to wear way - blend 2 opposites that are cohesive in one look. I've had the idea of doing a wrap skirt for some time as a thing I would sell as a staple in a brand id want to make, I also love showgirl corsets and have a lot of green and beige fringe that I can stitch onto both of these pieces, the base pieces are pink and my plan is to spray paint them both with white and light pink, stitch fringe onto it, but most importantly, use this old green mossy patterned fabric that is screenprinted in a really messy way, I think the blend of the 2 will be quite interesting, and the silhouette I'm making will be quite commercial yet quite unique.

Thursday 11th April:

Today I came up with the idea that I will be making this somewhat of a ready to wear collection. This happened when my friendship group and I were walking down the road and somebody asked us where the party was. I found this hilarious because my friends and I are always so dressed up that people think there is an occasion but this is just what we wear to go to the shop / down the street. This blurs the line entirely of ready to wear and couture, which I think should be blurred. I'm glad that today I had this thought, as it's changed the direction of my project somewhat, going forward from this I'm going to research designers that have had ready to wear shows strongly influenced by their couture shows.

Action plan : Friday - vaguely draft up looks

Saturday - sketch some things / digital design on PicsArt

Sunday - start thinking about how you'll begin to make the pieces

Tuesday 16th April:

I realised I wanted to make armour as the main look because I remember thinking that I needed armour to enter my dreams that the start of this project was about. I also found it fascinating how in drollery illustrations the rabbits were always the ones seen as strong protectors, even though in real life they aren't like that, therefore I want to add a softness to the armour and maybe reference an animalesque silhouette.

Monday 22nd April:

Today I was adding to the trousers I've made in the past to use in this collection, I took some of my screenprints of drollerys and put them on my screenprinted jeans to make them massive, I wanted to do a take on the "little top, big pants" silhouettes popularised by tiktoks modern party girls. I added ruffles to the sides of my other trousers with my older drawings of creatures. Moving on and going forward I need to make the armour and fill out the exhibition sheet.

Action plan: Tuesday: armour

Thursday: exhibition sheet and draping

Saturday: final tweaks

Tuesday 23rd April:

Today I was spraying the expandable foam on the armour and colouring it.

I had a difficult time at first with the foam because it kept on dripping off of the garment, but as I managed to get it controlled it ended up creating an interesting shape.

Colouring it was really fun, I had a really good time blending the different shades together, the copper, the brown and the green all went really beautifully together and I'm really happy with the colours

Thursday 24th April:

I wrote out the exhibition sheet which I really enjoyed because it helped my view the project in retrospect, and I'm proud of what I've done so far within it.

I draped on Milo and loved the garment, I realised it needed a glove.

Action plan:

Friday - boot sale to get fabric

Saturday - sewing

reflection 3

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