Fashion Forecasting

Semester 2 has kicked off with a project called 'Fashion Forecasting'. It's pretty self explanatory - we have to basically look at the trends past or predicted from 2010/2012, and come up with our own take on them. My project, after a shaky start with many conflicting ideas, is based on 'underwater'. As it is still early days in the project, I have not yet started sampling. Instead I have been focusing on the drawing side, looking at colours, textures and underwater creatures (I have decided that the octopus is the single most disgusting.... thing? (I don't quite know what you'd class them as!) To look at, ever.). Anyway, I'll be updating this post regularly with comments as to how I'm getting on and more photos. Here's a couple from my sketchbook so far.

 Here's another update. I have been working on more drawing and collecting information whilst looking at composition and colour. I am now moving onto sample making which I am very excited about - that's if I can actually get into the knit room - and I am hoping to produce some exciting pieces. 

Really..?!

So, I was just having a snoop on the American Apparel website and came across these;

'Oh yeah, I could do with a pair of those'

Oh my...

I've been looking for some inspiration online in reference to knitwear designers and stumbled across a website dedicated to 'Jemma Sykes', an RCA graduate who has designed for the likes of Givenchy and Julien MacDonald. She has also had her designs displayed in the windows of Harrods and Selfridges London. These are some huge names to have your work associated with, so I looked at some of her work to see what all the fuss was about.

I can safely say that her work is deserved of all the critical acclaim and publicity it had received. This dress is called 'The Elizabeth' and was entirely hand-knitted (in 100% organic wool) by Jemma Sykes. Now that's impressive. It was made for the ethical fashion label 'Butcher Couture', and was displayed in Harrods until it was auctioned off at a breast cancer charity event.

Sykes' designs are very exciting as they are innovative and at times ridiculously intricate! I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for any updates in her career.

Assignment 2

Assignment 2 started off with us reading a chapter from Roland Barthes' (extremely difficult) 'The Rhetoric of the Image'. I have to admit, this was my worst nightmare. After reading the first paragraph I was feeling well and truly depressed and tired out; academic French to English translation is a tricky one to get your head around. However, it actually did get easier once I got into it. Basically, Barthes looks at the image I have attached below and gives it a 'semiotic analysis' (there is a link to a website that I used to determine exactly what semiotics are at the bottom of this post) whilst telling us what 'polysemy' is - when images can have more than one meaning. He thinks that by adding a slogan or word to an image you can give the images a much more precise and obvious meaning, also cancelling out any other possible meanings. Sooo, you could see a picture of say, a sandwich, and you might think 'snacks', but when a slogan is added to the image, you may discover that the picture of the sandwich is actually advertising a shop. Once I had worked this out, I kind of wished that Barthes had just written that in the first place instead of going out of his way to confuse the reader; but maybe that is why I am studying art and not English Lit...

Anyway, according to Barthes every single advertisement can be divided into three categories - 'The Linguistic Message' (this applies to the text), 'The Symbolic Message' (the representation) and 'The Literal Message' (what you actually see). 

Look at the previous image. What is the first thing that you associate it with? Italians? That is what most people would think when looking at it, apart from, according to Barthes, the Italians. This is because it is not using proper Italian words. Can't say that I noticed that, but then again I am not Italian! Anyway, portraying the pasta as an Italian make suggests that it will be authentic, fresh and handmade pasta, so people will be more likely to trust the food. By showing the pasta in the netted bag it gives the impression that the pasta has been bought from a fresh food grocers as opposed to a large chain super market, and generally smaller grocers are seen as having better, more fresh food. We all know what is being literally implied in the image though, the advertisers want you to buy their food.

So, taking all of that into account, we were asked to apply these idealisms to our own images. My group and I decided to make our own images simply from blobs of ink. We then showed them to people who were not art students and asked them what it was that they thought of when they first looked at the images. We then chose one ink blob image and started to add small features in order to see how easy it is to get everyone to think the same thing when looking at the image. Here are some examples of our ink blobs and people's reactions to them.

 Emily, Student, Aged 20 - Squashed frog, lobster with weird taily bit, backside of a giraffe, person.

 

A Student, Aged 19- A man fishing.

A Tutor, Aged 31 - A monster with antenna.

A Waitress Aged 21 - A fish.

A Doctor, Aged around 30 -  Urban landscape, factories, someone being hung, giant insect. 

Gary, Bar Staff, Aged 23 -  Guy with headphones on, gun.

A Doctor, Aged around 30 - Fox, leaves, autumn, fire, road kill.

Gary, Bar Staff, Aged 23 -  Guy with dreadlocks, leaves, trees in autumn map of Scotland.

 

Sam, Student, Aged 18 - Poodle.

Zak, School boy, Aged 13 - Mermaids.

Zara, School girl, Aged 6 - Hippo.

A Student, Aged 19- Owl.

A Student, Aged 19- A negative of Rolf Harris. 

A Shop Assistant, Aged 24 - A winking man.

I quite enjoyed this task as it was interesting to find out the weird and wonderful answers people were coming up with (my personal favourite was the Rolf Harris negative - what an imagination!) and comparing them to see any similarities. However, we needed one of our ink blobs to look enough like something to make most of the onlookers see the same thing. So, we chose the last image shown above, taking one of the answers as the thing we would try and make it look like - an owl. We edited the image just slightly, adding some gold ink around what should have been accepted as the eye area, and asked some people the same question - what do you see?

We had hit the jackpot! Absolutely everyone that we asked said that they saw an owl. Although we had already achieved what we set out to do, we edited the image yet again, this time adding some text. 

For anyone reading this blog tell me if you can see the owl, or anything else you might see!!!

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/ - a useful website about semiotics.

Retail therapy, oh yes...

Just a quick mention on this post - for anyone who is a fan of Urban Outfitters accessories but can't afford the prices, check out...

 

www.cissyfacevintage.bigcartel.com/

I first came across Cissyface Vintage at a small craft fair in Dundee. Their products were very interesting as they had a definite high street influence, yet were rather unique at the same time. I do see a certain Urban Outfitters quality to their products which I know will appeal to many people so go and have a look!

Time to get Twitter I think...

We had a guest speaker in our lecture today, DoJ graduate Lauren Currie. Lauren graduated in product design, and now co-runs a small business with her friend Sarah (I can't remember her full name, sorry...) called 'Snook', which focuses on service design. When she asked who knew what this was, I was pretty embarrassed to see the number of people who did know, considering I didn't have a clue. However, she went on to describe what exactly it is that her business does and how it helps people. Instead of me trying to explain it all though, here is a link to their website - see for yourself!

http://www.wearesnook.com/

Lauren was also really trying to stress the importance of social networking, whether it is over Twitter or Skype, basically you just have to 'get yourself out there' - a frightening thought. To force your presence onto people? Sounds daunting, but when you think about it really it is no different to the every day situations we face without giving them a second thought.  Here's a question - why is it that we can all sit on the likes of Facebook each and every day for hours on end, communicating with people constantly, giving our thoughts and opinions without personally being asked, yet the idea of maybe... Writing a blog post for example, can really stump us? Consider the fact that if someone is on your blog, chances are that they are interested to see what you have to say. Facebook? Not so much. So maybe it's time to stop getting so worked up at the idea of writing a blog post and use it as a tool to get your ideas across. 

I know I have kind of gone off on a tangent but I guess that is what lectures are for, getting students thinking for once! 

Anyway, I think all who attended the lecture could see that Lauren has been pretty successful so far. She has done a great job with her business and has had some opportunities that many could only dream of, deservedly so as she has worked very hard from what I could gather. So good on her!

Assignment 1 - Snooping around a bedroom...

The first design studies assignment we have been set is to analyse a fellow second year design student by looking at their room and possessions. We were told to read Sam Goslings book 'Snoop' to help us with this task, and although I have to say it was not my cup of tea, I still found it helpful in this assignment. 
I wasn't comfortable with the idea of this assignment at all. Looking at someone's room who you don't know and telling them, truthfully, what you think? Yikes. My immediate concern would be that I was faced with a partner who has a horribly messy and dirty room - no one wants to tell a stranger that they have a disgusting living space. However, I just tried to think about it in the way that everyone was in the same boat and probably having the same misgivings as me. 
The thought of someone scruitinising my bedroom worried me too. I love my bedroom and everything in it, so if someone was to say it wasn't nice I have to say I would feel pretty insulted! Again though, I just had to remember that no one is out to insult their partner - it's just a task to increase awareness of other tastes and influences.
I was partnered with jewellery student Christina Finlay, who thankfully has a nice room which I could easily talk about without offending - something I and I'm sure a lot of other students were worried about.

We were asked to categorise our findings into four groups - Taste, Influences, Possessions and Environment. I personally find that these groups all related to each other very closely and more or less blended into one another, yet here are my results.

Taste

Christina has a very white and clean looking room, with splashes of colour here and there. The  bed spread is white with a deep red throw and some colourful cushions, which suggest to me that she is a fan of the 'minimalistic' style of furnishing. Her wardrobe seems to have a colour scheme trend of crisp whites and blacks with some neutral florals here and there. The co-ordination shown here tells me that she is interested in fashion and clothing. Her toiletries and beauty products are mostly well known brands and what looks like her make up bag has the word 'lovely' printed on it, suggesting to me that she likes vintage styling and brand names.

Influences

The large three piece painting (or photograph, I couldn't quite make out which) on the wall next to the bed tells me that she is interested in art, which I suppose is pretty obvious since I know she is a Jewellery student, but we'll pretend I didn't know that. She owns quite a lot of famous brand toiletries and perfumes showing that she likes these designs and makes. From looking at her wardrobe I can imagine her shopping in well known high street shops and maybe online stores such as ASOS. I think she would be drawn to people of similar taste and interest to herself, simply because she seems to have a clear style that has not necessarily been dictated to her by her friends or family, but probably been influenced in some way by them.

Possessions

Christina is obviously someone who takes pride in her appearance due to her collection of beauty products and toiletries. The water bottle on the desk suggests that she probably goes to the gym or out running, and the pills next to it could maybe be vitamins or medication which she has left out so that she doesn't forget to take them. She has some jewellery on top of a desk size chest of drawers which I would suspect contains even more, stored away nicely to avoid mess. The cushions and throw on her bed look well placed  showing that when someone enters her room she wants them to appreciate the thought that has gone into making her bed. I expected to see a full length mirror somewhere as this seems like the perfect room to have one, or maybe I just can't see it.

Environment

It looks to me like Christina lives in a student flat (not halls) with one or more flatmates. I'm not entirely sure why I get that impression but I think that maybe because her room looks inviting and tidy. Despite the fact that I'm pretty certain she is a tidy person anyway,  there is more incentive to make sure the room is like that if others are going to see it often! I actually thought her wardrobe would be more organised than it seemed to be (although in comparison to mine it is) simply because of the neatness of her room. I am pretty certain that she will have some more books and maybe a tv or laptop hidden away somewhere, maybe in a cupboard or on shelves. However these things can clutter up a room, and I don't think she is a fan of clutter. I also thought there would be some more family photographs in nice frames, but that is my pre-judgment shining through as I'm aware that she is quite a family orientated person. I think she has tried (and succeeded) in making her room look quite sophisticated as opposed to the usual 'studenty' style of old vodka bottles lined up on the window sill and band posters all over the wall.