Reflective statement

During the study of unit 1, i learnt how to use photograph, words and even sound to record everything i experienced. For the Rough Guide project, keep drawing and taking picture is very important to develop my idea and concept. I think i will use what i have learnt about research skills in the future projects.
I think if i have more time to have a interview with audience about my works will be better. It is important to have a communicate with audience and designer.
Unit 1 also including study tasks and blog. To be honest, i have no writing habit before i use this blog. I thought it will take long time to manage. But now i think it is a good thing to keep a blog. Blog helps me to organise knowledge and information i got in these several mouths. It reminds me of what i have learnt in each technical blocks and study tasks. Not only the new technique i have learnt but also the problems i faced at that time and record how i overcome them.
However i don't think i finish unit1 very well. Every time i update my blog a little bit late. If i can post after the finish of technical block immediately. I would have more thoughts about process of each technical block.
I wish i can read more books before i writing the essay of study task instead of do some research online. Some of the writing task is difficult to me.
In conclusion, i will still keep a blog after this unit. I want to see my progress step by step.

Pre-Raphaelites

Pre-Raphealites exhibition in Tate Britain is one of our museum visit task. Normally, i am not very interesting in the painting in Victorian period. I have no idea about Pre-Raphealites brotherhood before i went to the exhibition. But i fall in love with John Everett Millais's painting immediately. 

His painting are so narrative and lively. People in the painting have their own characters and the stories were well presented. 

I was not only impressive by the skills of Pre-Raphealites brotherhood but also the avant idea of using nature views and normal story as their objects. They brought us a new area of paintings then we can appreciate painting out of religion concept.

Due to the admire of John Everett Millais's paintings i bought a book from Tate Britain. The pictures of this posts are all scan from the book.

The Blind Girl 1854-6 Oil on Canvas
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. Presented by Rt Hon William Kendrick, 1892
This is a breathtaking painting by John Everett Millais. Colour of the painting are so warm and made me feel i was in the picture and lying on grass with these two girl.

Ferdinand Lured by Ariel 1849-50 Oil on panel The Makins Collection

Above: Dante Drawing and Angel on the First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice 1848-9
Below: The Disentombment of Queen Matilda 1849

The picture above are illustrations for books. I like the one The Disentombment of Queen Matilda. You can see all details on the ladies' face. Someone shocking, laughing, scaring and crying.

A Huguenot, on St Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield himself from Danger by wearing the Roman Catholic Badge 1851-2 Oil on canvas  The Makins Collection

Another point which inspired me a lot is the fashionable colour combination in these paintings. I was wondering if John come to 21th century. He must be a successful fashion designer.

Bibliography

Barringer, T(2012) Pre-Raphaelites Victorian Avant-Grade, fig61, 109, 50, 55

 

Print CAD

irregular pattern design

This is my first time to use photoshop. It seems everyone in my class have used it before.  There are some images in my mind but i don't know how to present it and achieve it in the computer. That is the most difficult thing to me. However the staff in CAD room helped me a lot. He teach me basic knowledge of photoshop and also introduce some tools that might useful to me.    

Repeat pattern

combination of doll heads and mark making pattern1

combination of doll heads and mark making pattern2

It is very easy to forget create new layer. But i can use photoshop now. I realised the only way to learn a new technique is more practises.

                            

Fuerza Buta

I have watched a show called Fuerza Buta in Round house. The show is extremely cool. People did performs in the house like running on the wall and flying(with swing) and etc. The most impressive one is some girls swim in the swimming pool which just on the ceiling. So all the audiences can see from below. 

A special vintage knit coat

There is a vintage fair in Hammersmith Hall this weekend. This beautiful knit coat catch my eyes immediately. The man who sell this coat told me it come from Mexico. I was so crazy about this coat. It just looks like a contemporary art piece hanging on the wall. I bought it even through the price is so high. I think it is worth to buy.

Print technical block - screen print

Screen print is so difficult to control! We spent only one day on our screen print which i think the time is really not enough for us. I wanna try more colour and shape combination on the print design. But every sample seen too rough due to we don't have enough time to prepare and get know of the colour.

I hope we have more time to test different colour.

The picture above is the design for screen print. Idea come from doll head. The drawing we done in first few weeks.

The picture above is one of the screen print sample. I used technique screen add on my design. Do the blue one and yellow one separately. When blue one add on yellow one it become green. So i got three colour of the polka dots without wash it three times:))

Extreme drawing

 Extreme drawing is a very interesting unit to me. I have never done such a big scale drawing before.  Today, we work in group about eight people. We use the chair we bring to the room to make a sculpture. Once we finished the sculpture we started to draw together on a big sheet of paper.

We can draw in any angle we want and switch the position later. We can even draw overlap on each others works. Draw without limitation made me feel good. 

After we finish the first layer of drawing we start to do wrapping on the sculpture. 

It took us long time to wrap around the object. However it is really fun. And we end up a abstract big drawing with colour.

Stylish outfit with print

long dress with print

Tights with flower print

Very nice detail of the whole look. Printed shoes and tights.

dress with flower print

printed scarf

printed sweater

collar with Chinese traditional flower print

dress with print

long skirt with kimono print

Print is a popular trend in fashion today. Almost everyone wear prints in some occasion.  My research target are girl and lady. The print they like to wear is more colourful and with cute pattern.
Some of the print done by screen print, it looks easy to make but the outcome is very impressive. As textile designer, i need to understand sometimes less is more. The street style shooting give me some inspiration.

National Army Museum

Multipurpose backpack

The backpack was from World War Two. It is the starting point of Military style bag. The design of large amount of pockets due to practical value of  carrying necessity. Army store everything they need in case they can't go back to campsite immediately. Pockets are designed in different size in order to separated the functions. Pockets designed for medicine, telescope, food and knife. The colour is very close to ground like brown. It won't get dirty easily and easy to camouflage.

Water proof lunch bag

Handmade waxed canvas bag  is fixed with an oil-tanned leather strap and brass buckle. Durable waxed cotton canvas is designed for customer who want to use again and again. These bags are handmade in West Asheville

Orders and Medals of Major-General Thomas Staunton St Clair

St Clair served with the 5th Portugese Cacadores in the Peninsula. They have excellent reputation in fighting and these eight medals proved it. Medals made with gold and sliver. Different shape and colour made them looks fashionable even in today.

Medal accessories Xander Zhou Fall 2013

Xander Zhou Fall 2013 has collaborate with designer accessory brand YVMIN. MIN design to use medal as inspiration for this season. Metallic appearance combine with colourful ribbon and funny shape. Accessories for this season are popular and receive plenty of order after London fashion week. 

                                                                Military uniform

The military uniform has developed at the end of World War Two. Shorts and hats appear. Soldiers can wear shorts in summer time and it brought convenience and comfortable to them. The design of two big pockets in the front are for small tools like knife and bullets. 

Junya Watanabe Fall 06 Ready-to-wear
The collection of Junya Watanabe for this season is about military style. This is a innovation design for womenswear. Big green jacket with big pocket in the front and camouflage print pattern sweater are all present the practical value and uni-sex wearing.

Fashion trend always influence by the history. The story and style come over again and again. Military trend style has never stop on the stage. In my opinion, there are several reasons. 

Firstly, the uniform for soldiers are design for fighting. The most important thing to concern is the standard of convenient and practical value. How could a jacket be muti-functional and comfortable of the cutting. All these elements are concerned and designed over and over start from the World War One. The military uniform still improving in nowadays. Military jacket are suitable to wear in the situation of camping, mountain climbing and all the exploration activities. So, the strong practical value of military style jacket make it become very popular in menswear.

Secondly, man do looks cool and strong in military uniform. Many movies and books has create a strong and greatness figure of soldier. So, there is a huge space of imagination of military uniform. That is also the reason why medal become a archetype of accessories design.

As manifested in Womenswear, it also reflects the greater influence that women are having as wage earners and household budgeters in the current economic downturn. (Cyril Foiret, 2010, P.20)

However, fashion trend is start to be uni-sex. So some of the designer combine the military style into womenswear and achieve huge success. The status of woman has changed in our society. Woman have their jobs and need to do exactly the same volume of works as man. So for most of woman, they won't wear fancy dinner dress everyday especially for working days. Woman still love haute couture like Dior but the feminate delicate design not suitable for everyday life that much. As a sample of myself, I wish there more jacket for girls that with several pockets. Then i can put some necessity like mobile phone and glasses in it. 

Military style influence our life a lot, no matter in which design area. As time goes by, i believe more and more people will start to accept this kind of design. Not only in fashion aspect but also the highly standard of functional value.

Bibliography

 (2006) Junya Watanabe Fall 06 ready-to-wear,2010, [online image] Avalible at:http://bestschizoever.blogspot.co.uk [Accessed 16 June 2010]

(2009) Water proof lunch bag, 2010, [online image] Available at: http://store.kaufmann-mercantile.com [Accessed 8 July 2010]

(2013) Xander Zhou YUMIN 2013 AW Jewellery, 2013 [online image] Available at: http://www.weibo.com/xanderzhou [Accessed 10 Jan 2013]

Stitch technical block2

This is the second post of stitch block as i am very enjoy the process of developing ideas of stitch sample. I spent my winter holiday to do some more stitch. The first two samples i have done is my original idea just simply fold them and show the different between felt(plastic) and silk.

For this new sample i start to develop the side of the fabric i made. It looks like a flower. So i decide to made more and cut the fabric smaller in order to make a flat flower which can be use as accessories.

TED project

We are introduced TED project recently.

All of our research is based on the estimation that decisions made in design are responsible for eighty to ninety percent of a product's environmental and economic costs (Graedel et al. 1995). 

To reduce the pressure we have create to our environment, as a textile designer, we can use recycling idea which redesign the old clothes.
There is a new fashion designer called MOMO Wang who graduated from Central Saint Martin in 2011. Her recently project was collected vintage clothes and material from market in her hometown which in Wenzhou China. She redesign the vintage clothes with new technique and combine with new fabric sample. Last project was use the same idea and she achieve a huge success of that collection. (MOMO is my friend and she send these picture to me)

MOMO Wang collection 2012

MOMO Wang collection 2012

MOMO Wang collection 2012

Her collection reminds people about the beauty of antique.
In my country there are plenty of antique fabric. It all hand made but most of people didn't realise how good the quality of the fabric. There are some picture i took in Wenzhou China.

As a textile student. I think i can take the advantage of beautiful textile in my country. In my design, there could be a combination of old textile fabric with contemporary style. It is important to show people,  beauty is not unlimited consumption and new technology printed fabric. There is no set formula of true beauty. Antique could be elegant and stylish. To me, i will try my best to recreate a image of old clothes(material). Antique and vintage fabric is not for grandma. It is something last for long time and carrying historical value. 

I would better to take some pictures with modern style after i finish the collection. The whole image of my fashion style is clam and peaceful. Our fashion trend is full of promotion and advertising elements. Especially for young people, they don't need fashion trend. They are beautiful as they are. So fashion to me, is something suit me and i could wear it for as long as i can. I hope more people can understand this point of view and stop consuming.