HELLO BRIDGET!_

 Bridget Stanford: 
   I had an amazing opportunity to be able to meet Bridget and discuss her eccentric and eclectic vintage collection. She was a wonderful woman, and fully welcomed us to talk about her clothing and passion for all things vintage. She has fully immersed herself into this passion- everything in her life revolves around vintage, from interior design to her social life.

Can you tell us where your passion for fashion and textiles came from.
    My mother was a textiles designer before and during the war, and my father was a textile agent (a middle man between the mill and high street retailers)' which is where they met. So we always had a house full of fabric, and grew up in a world of patchwork and print.

Can you tell us about your design background?
   My mother went to Glasgow school of art, so I was always immersed in drawings and art, and gave me the confidence to start drawing. Because we didn't have television or computers, we just to draw and write. And the more you draw, the better you become.
   I've always enjoyed drawing and fashion, and thought I wanted to become a fashion illustrator, but I dint think I was very good. I went to colchester school of art, and feel the drawing side of textiles is very important. 
   My mother worked for a company in Hanover square, which contained a huge archive of rose drawings.the idea there was reinventing something new each time, especially as a commercial textile designer. I then ended up working in the same studio as my mother. I used to be told 'I want you to create a little brother or sister of this magazine cut out' , not to rip off the print, but to design something with the same qualities.

What do you think print can bring to a garment?
   Print tells a story about a person, it reveals little bits about you, and stamps your style. It gives people clues to your personalities.

Have you got a favorite style of print?
   I love novelty, ridiculous prints that are quirky and fun. My mother used to say 'don't wear that, it's a Manchester print'. She used to dislike this style of print because it was made in the factories in Manchester, it was one colour, Victorian print on cotton. It was often a repeat pattern on a roller meaning it was cheap and easy to produce. 

What do you think of prints on the high street?
   I'm a bit out of the loop as I wear a lot of vintage prints, but I often go with my daughter. I recently bought a dress from sainsburys as it had a print of a pin up girl and umbrellas, it was really sweet. I didn't like the style of the dress nor the fabric, but I bought it to add to my collection.

Do you have a favorite designer who uses print well?
   Horockses are a British company that produced beautiful good quality prints. Most of them are floral, but they are so lovely. Biba have quirky fun prints. At the time the brand was fun, affordable and badly made, but now garments are highly sought after as it didn't last. My first school dance dress was a biba, very retro. My sister dressed me in it.

Is there a favorite piece in your collection? 
  One of my favorite pieces is a jacket I bought from a jumble sale. It has a beautiful, layered, vibrant print, and really depicts my personality. Unfortunately it never fitted, so many a time it was on my throw out pile, but I couldn't get rid of it! 
   I also love this dress as it has a jewellery print on the fabric, as if a string of pearls have been thrown onto it. It's very surrealist and flamboyant. Versace use a lot of jewellery in their prints,so it's interesting to see how things come around and what brands are inspired by.

How do you describe your personal style?
   That's a hard thing to describe, as I don't want to be put into a pigeon hole. My collection of garments are usually 40s or 50s. I really love the vintage Vivienne Westwood, cartoon and pop art prints. I think it's important to ask 'why do you like it?' If you feel confident in it, wear it. Everyone has a personal style, which is important, it defines you. Everyone puts outfits together, there is always a thought process. Design identity evolves, everything is from your view point.

Who inspired/ inspires you?
   From an early age I guess I was cutting pictures from magazines of Marilyn Monroe, and Hollywood starlets. I love old films as the colours and garments are incredible. I wanted to believe there was this glamorous world, but I thought it might as well be this one. Nowadays people such as Lady Gaga and Vivienne Westwood inspire me, and Dita Von Teese because of her vast vintage collection.

Vintage has inspired everything everything I do/ have. It has inspired my home, the music I listen to, the films I watch and the social circles I immerse myself in. One thing I'm not shy about is mixing my eras- I'll have a little bit of everything from every era dotted around.  

INVESTIGATING THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE_

Investigating the Cultural Landscape, by Sean O'Deal - Research, sources and methodologies.

This was a very interesting and informative lecture about how research is a key component in your work. It reflects and inspires everything we do, changes view points and informs you of your chosen areas.
Sean discussed with us his techniques of researching, and the best way to record primary and secondary research.
Place- Visit, photograph, document, analyze, evaluate, interview, participate, interact, discuss.
Subject- Search for documents, extract quantitative and qualitative data, interview participants, statistical data form reputable sources, journals and press.

It was interesting to see research from an others perspective, as I feel sometimes one can get lost in the midst of research and not really know where to go. Its hard as primary research is so vast, you can literally relate anything to the work you are producing. so where do you start? following the steps mentioned earlier seems like a good process, and design after all is a process so it ties in together. sometimes a designers brain is all over the place, so a recipe one can follow helps the madness from occuring. 
Art wouldn't be art without research,being inspired by something. I feel I learned that its important to record everything- the resource, articles, interviews, photos. its all so important in that design process.

Primary research: National archives; Essex records office; Digital resources; Early newspapers/magazines; Photography

Secondary research: Books; Journals; Magazines; Internet

PRINTS IN TEXTILES_

Swap over, time to create some amazing textiles prints. I'd now fully settled into the course and was enjoying what was on offer, so I didn't feel nervous like I had previously. Silly me. 

Immediately as I walked into the room my eyes were filled with interesting textures and shapes, due to wonderful displays to get ourselves inspired. Using these textures, the aim was to exaggerate them and create a series of pages using mark making. I used swiggely lines, bold direct lines, scratchy paint with biro on top, and soft sweeping lines, all used to represent the objects in the room. This part I I had plenty of ideas for, but still I was a bit un-confident (I tend to look at other peoples work and compare it to mine, a bad thing in my eyes). The next step didn't come as easily to me. We had to cut up our textural mark making pages and layer them together, stick some on top of each other, or place cut up pieces onto black/white paper. But I felt my pieces weren't working together well, they didn't click and scream an amazing print. That was until Will cut up some of my textural paper that I had discarded, and put different widths of paper together, leaving a jagged edge. I was crazy about it, and really felt it was successful! The scratchy paint (applied with an old wall brush and minimal paint) with biro in the opposite direction was simple yet so effective, and the layering of different sections on top of each other worked well. At first I thought I liked the strips all heading in the same direction, but as I started playing around with the print, I decided that it looked even more special about laying/weaving some strips vertically on top. It was a very raw and sketchy print, representing me and I my style I feel.
As I wasn't too crazy about the other prints, I really concentrated on the one print I loved. I used the photo copier to downsize the print, then put many of the prints together of different sizes to create a large scale print. The detail was incredible, it was so intricate and scratchy, and I could already see it coming together in a garment.
Leading on from this I refined my print, creating another scratchy painted background, but this time concentrating on the biro being more bold and striking, having a closer knit piece to work with. I then cut this up into different widths, exaggerating the size difference, and layered them together similar to before. However this time I felt it look more effective with all the strips laying in the same way. It looked a lot more refined and professional, but also the scale improved the look. Again I could see it curving around a shirt, or being cut in half on the front of a shirt. So I began photo copying the print in different sizes, and using the pattern blocks created a collar using the print. It actually looked quite professional, and could definitely visualise a plain shirt with this textural collar.
This was a very valuable workshop, with some brilliant results produced. Although I got a little bit stuck to start with, I feel I came through and and made a really strong print.      

TEXTILE APPLICATIONS_painting onto a screen & discharge printing

   This week was the start of our support modules. I chose to study the introduction to textile applications, as I wanted to delve deep into the world of textiles and all it has to offer. So I was very excited. The thing I love about is course is that we just get stuck in. Short demonstration then it's over to us to try to create an amazing print. Painting on a screen (yes that is the technical name) was the first process. It's as simple as it sounds, painting onto an blank screen with procien dyes. I absolutely loved the way colours bled into one another when dye was applied on top. It created an interesting water mark pattern, but also the colours merged creating a beautiful mid colour. My first thoughts were how would this look transferred onto the material- messy? Unprofessional? But I really enjoyed the outcome. It had a soft, painty feel to it, almost delicate. But the bold colours contrasted against this, but unintentionally complimented the wild Aztec print I had produced. The colours actually became more vibrant when transferred onto the material, which is actually really interesting. It just shows textiles is so pure and you have no control over it, it's completely based on luck, and when printing like this, it is impossible to duplicate a print (which is why it's so special in my opinion). 

   Discharge printing is where the printing paste takes away the colour in the procien dye, to leave you the negative space. The easiest way to do this was by creating a stencil that covered the parts of the original print you wanted to stay with ripped up paper and masking tape. As the printing paste was clear, it was near impossible to see where the cloud would be taken, and looking back I feel too much colour was left. I really enjoy where the rough edges from the paper can be seen, the overlapping and negative space, and I would have liked more of this. The two separate prints (effectively) come together and compliment each other wonderfully.

   Seeing how easy this was to create was amazing. It looked professional, and for a first attempt of anything textiles I was proud of it. 

INTRODUCTION TO FASHION DRAWING_

   The third week already, it had come around so quickly. With work already piling up, I realised how much this course is going to take over my life. That being said I want to fully immerse myself in the world of fashion and my own passions, so it wasn't a negative thought. 

   Today was a short introduction to fashion drawing and different ways in which this could be achieved.  First stop- modelling on the stand. It proved a great way to quickly get down creative ideas, a starting point to develop from. Our source of inspiration was taken from an interesting photograph, drawing or texture in our sketchbook, but as I was finding out, inspiration for fashion can literally be taken from anything, anywhere around you. It's a big old world, plenty of ideas to go around. I began with a simple scrunched up piece of paper sort of folded around and manipulated to form what could be a skirt. This was really successful, and mimicked the irregular folding seen on the base of deer antlers. I liked the flow and continuity, and I could instantly see an outfit design.  I then moved onto the machine, and tried to incorporate the wiggly line on top of the skull into a seam or interesting motif on a garment.

   Leading on from this was fashion drawings. Technical and precise drawings are not my forte, but I gave it my best shot. I felt the smooth lines didn't suit me, but it was to quickly get an idea across, not look amazing. As we only included small sections when modelling on the stand, this now gave us a chance to visualise a complete garment. I struggled at first, not really feeling a source of inspiration from my designs. I put some designs into the layout pad, but as I got going more flowed to me and I built up about 12 different designs. I felt they were sufficient- they explained my ideas visually, but I wasn't crazy about the look of them. Looking around the class, many people had so many exciting pieces, but maybe I'm just being harsh on myself.

   Helen bullock, a very influential textile print designer and fashion illustrator was the source of our next task. Fashion illustrations were more my thing, as you can kind of go crazy on them. Incorporating hints of the designs created earlier, I produced 5-6 A2 illustrations, all of which I was pleased with. Like Helen bullock, we were encouraged to include colour to suggest the garment, in a washy way, not just colouring in the piece. I got to grips with only putting in lines where they were needed, not creating a definite outline of the model and garment. The colour was predominantly used for this.
   For someone like me, who it's always critical of my own work, I was really pleased. Plus it's always nice for people to walk past saying 'wow is that yours?' I feel I already have a style within my work. I wouldn't say its messy but it's definitely not precise, and a small mistake has never bothered me, I'll just work around it. My fashion illustrations were no exception. I went for it in this workshop, and the style of them was basic and colourful. They worked well and were visually pleasing, lively pieces.

ESSEX UNIVERSITY VISIT _

   First thoughts- there is no way I am setting foot on that double decker bus. So the whole journey was spent with an irrational fear of the bus toppling over . What a wonderful start to the morning. 
   Startled. The grounds for the University were on a massive scale, it made me feel lucky to have such a close knit community at my campus. 
   Once in the lecture theatre, we were told about the resources on offer to us on that campus.  However I felt it was a bit of a negative experience, and was left feeling a bit deflated. Most of the talks were about what we couldn't get involved in, and this was highlighted more than what we could do. So to me, it seemed a bit of a wasted trip and couldn't get my head around why they had invited us there. Was it to gloat at what fabulous resources they have that we don't? I feel our resources are a lot more sufficient for what we need.

ITS JUST THE BEGINNING _ an introduction to our project.

The morning panned out as expected- introducing us to the course and the marking criteria. However the exciting part was the pace ( and a little but horrifying) and got stuck in immediately.  What is trend? No one wanted to voice their opinion, me included. I've never been good with speaking to an audience, so when  team work was mentioned, my heart sank (I'm more of an I dependant worker). It was only discussing our made up trend, but my mind went blank- since when have I become such an unconfident person? Something I can definitely improve on, and I'm sure there's a lot more of voicing our ideas to come throughout the course. 
I was intrigued at the odd array of objects hanging from the wall- from bird wings to rubber gloves, you could only find this on a fashion and textiles course. All very confusing, but I think it became sort of clear when the current trends found on WGSN (world global style network) were discussed and the objects were tied in. So these were to be the source of inspiration! My busy brain didn't let me rest for today, and choosing one trend was hard when I had interesting ideas for many of them. I think what settled it for me was the subtle use of bird wings and feathers, from which I derived taxidermy, something I'm passionate about. This was based in the trend 'reworks of art', which included florals, binding with rope, peeling and revealing past artworks or eras and texture. My initial thoughts were to cover skulls in print, cut out skull shapes and develop a print from floral paper and so on.  I really did enjoy the prospect of working on this further and developing my ideas, maybe including crazy print and the idea of tying something up to manipulate the shape.

Afternoon soon came- I had a good feeling about this. The class consisted of drawing and mark making, an area that excited me. It was a wonderful session and I gained valuable drawing techniques  that would help me get my ideas down on a page, expressing my opinions in a creative way. The idea was to work in a big way, and focus on small areas of an object through a view finder. I just went with it, and the big mark and textural lines really came together. I liked the way we were encouraged to work on top of our pieces using different media, for example I created a pen and ink floral piece, scratchy and feathery, and then worked on top with bleach, which turned the colour almost yellow/gold and took away pieces to reveal an eye catching piece. It enlivened the drawing and I felt the watery feel from the bleach contrasted with the hard scratchy lines worked well together  Another technique which was really successful was continuous line onto a textural surface. The continuos line gave a sort of flow and cycle, but the textured background broke some of the biro line up, creating a really interesting contrast. 

I was probably a bit rusty, not having put pen to paper for a long while. The key is definitely practice practice practice, and of course I'll probably look back at these drawings and see how far I have come. That's the plan anyway, always striving for improvement me! 

WHAT IS AN ART SCHOOL?_

   A question I have never really asked myself. What does being part of an art school mean? I guess the word school made me assume to learn, to gather information and use that in order to get ‘good’ grades. But what place does the word art have? Does this one word have the power to change the concept of school just by putting them together? Especially when it is considered one does not go to an art school to learn, but is already an artist/ designer, gaining skills and bettering themselves in their chosen path. My understanding is that you don’t get taught, so why is there a grading scheme? Doesn’t this defeat the object of an art school, and if one is already an artist or designer but receives a ‘bad’ grade, does this mean they are no longer an artist/designer? This is all very confusing, but I feel the restrictiveness of education does not compliment art. As an artist, you are already a free spirit, and although that doesn’t mean you know your exact direction, the imprisonment (in my opinion) holds said designer/artist down and doesn’t allow them to flourish.

   I feel the idea of an art school is to overcome the misconception of what art is about. What’s the first thing that comes into most people’s head when art is discussed- Still life, life drawing and the old nude painting. But these are dating right back to the 1800s, and although still influential, the art movement has changed dramatically. Artists such as Manet and the work Olympia have been starting points to the change within art, causing controversy along the way.

   An art school is everything people think it is not. Art school is no longer a site for the replication and past standards, but is rather a laboratory for finding out again and again what art and design is or could be. It’s experimental, it encourages you to come out of your shell and explore new techniques, but most importantly, it incorporates everything around you into the work you do.

“Art is taught, but no one knows how.” Daniel Birnaums, Philosopher of the Stadeschule.

FASHION WEEKS- Who. What. Where_

NEW YORK. LONDON. MILAN. PARIS.

 

   Designers show at certain cities because each city is know for something different, and people look at the collections in their own thoughtful way, meaning some designers are more successful in each of the capitals. The designers have to be accredited to show in the Fashion weeks, so for new designers it’s very difficult to get into that high demanding world. And unfortunately, a lot of it is down to money and how successful a designer is.

   Fashion weeks vary, and are recognized for different things. Take the Spring/Summer 2015 collections from each of the capitals, they are all widely different. In New York and Paris, practical/ ready to wear clothing is prominent, whereas in London and Milan, the more artistic, unconventional, eye catching approach using playful colours is taken in the hope to sell their collections. New York is known for its commerciality, and while there are still hints of this within London, the collections are more couture and artistic, meaning their aim isn't to sell their collections but make a statement or tell a story. Paris has a definite split from the other three cities. It concentrates on organic shapes and versatility, including some beautiful sculptural pieces. The collections are often rather expensive looking, couture based, but still wearable.

   Maybe New York and Paris are aiming higher than London and Milan, purely based on the fact they are creating wearable collections and are hoping to sell the garments.

I found this article rather informative and interesting www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/14/fashion-shows-designers-couture

INDUCTION WEEK_The start of something new

Induction week: 29^th September – 3^rd October

   

    I was pretty apprehensive about starting university- I have never been good inside of education, always feeling too restricted. So with a bad experience behind me, I wasn’t confident about getting on with this course. Well, even someone as stubborn as me can be pleasantly surprised, as I found myself enjoying the week.

Once the first hiccup of forgetting my student finance letter was out of the way, I allowed myself to relax and get involved. Of course it was going to be hard getting back into the swing of a constant workload (after all I did have 3 months off), but even from the first day, it felt like a fashion course. It felt natural to me.

   

    Me being myself, I was very eager to get stuck in, maybe appearing a little over enthusiastic and possibly annoying. The print workshop was one I was extremely looking forward to, as I wanted to explore the textiles side, and would like to incorporate both fashion and textiles in my work. It was extremely welcoming, and I got to grips with the print room instantly- I clicked, as if I belonged there. The task was to print onto an apron so we had a personal one for our time at uni. The techniques were screen printing, flocking and foiling. Never have I had a great chance to experiment with any form of print, so it was all a bit hit and miss. The two colours used for the screen printing complimented each other, and was amazed at the simplicity to be able to create such a professional looking print. I was really pleased with the outcome, and proud of myself for getting stuck in and enjoying myself, instead of worrying and not taking part. Definitely keen on learning and experimenting with new printing techniques.

    Lecture theatre- It finally felt like a uni course, however the lecture confused me. It seemed to have no context, not at this point in the course. I felt it needed to be explained with our personal course along side it to break down and understand where the marks were coming from. Although it was informative, I guess it could have been introduced a little later on when we had got to grips with our project.

    I have used the industrial machines before, but had forgotten the sinister noise they make. I am clumsy at the best of times, so the pressure you had to put on the pedal to me a few attempts to get right,  many times roaring through the fabric. In the machine induction, we were introduced to simple stitching, threading the sewing machine and winding a bobbin, and also how to over lock. This enabled us to make a simple but useful equipment bag. Perhaps I wasn’t happy with the outcome, as it wasn’t as neat as I would have hoped for- probably due to the fact I was a bit hap handed on the machine (I’m sure I’ll get plenty of practice throughout the year). I couldn’t get to grips with sewing in a straight line; it was all a bit curvy and wonky, but for a first attempt, it was sufficient. To improve, I feel the cause of a lot of my problems is due to the fact I’m always in a rush. Maybe if I slowed down I could focus better and produce work to a standard I was happy with.
    
    The induction week was a positive experience- I liked the fact it was hands on, not just information handed and spoken to us. This was, by experiencing the processes for ourselves, we understood more thoroughly and retained the information. The sessions were really well organised, especially considering the group size. It was a nice touch to make things we could uses throughout the year and be proud of (or look back and see how far you’ve progressed!)