The Vertical Gallery

As part of Unit X and as an extension to the end of year degree show, I have decided to apply for a vertical gallery commission space. Despite my context being primarily fashion led, I have always been inspired by installation and large scale work, so I feel that this is a perfect opportunity to combine and explore two areas of my design practice.

I will be proposing to build a concept led, visual merchandising inspired installation piece. A concept store that will house my garments as well as telling the narrative of my story through a variety of different elements

My proposed installation will consist of a structure comprised of multiple scaffolding poles, which will help to provide a sense of city life, my collection will hang within the structure, surrounded by other connecting elements such as; neon pole lights, poster style graphics and vinyl cut wording. Each element will work together to tell the narrative of my collection, providing an opportunity for the audience to understand and connect, with the in depth conceptual directions that drive a fashion collection.

I am currently in the presentation stage of this proposal!

Unit X

 Unit X has been one of my most slowest starting projects to date, I feel after such positive results in the practice unit, I have been stumped by a sense of fear that I may not be able to up my game. Up till this point I have been exploring themes that revolve around the lack of empathy within the city, and gathering inspiration from spending time in my surroundings. Even though I feel there are potentials within these themes, I have come to realise that the reason I feel so uninspired and stumped, is that they are not expressing who I am as a designer. I am a designer that likes to make a statement, I thrive off the now and by leaving my protest ethics in practice unit, I have lost that spark that drives my practice. It is now one week before the Easter break, and although I feel worried that I have lost vital working time, I feel that I have learnt a valuable lesson about my practice. Even though I have been wanting to explore new themes, I mustn’t forget about what it is that defines me as a designer. As I carry on now into the remainder of Unit X, I feel the importance to go back to my roots and rekindle the working practice I had developing within the last unit.

I have high ambitions for Unit X and believe I can still pull my strengths and skills together to create a final collection that illustrates my working practice as a designer. My aims are to create a mini collection comprised of multiple garments such as denim jackets, dungarees, overalls, sweatshirts and t shirts. One of my main concerns when it comes to working within a fashion concept however, is the fact that I have strong views when it comes to the world of fast fashion and consumerism. In order to illustrate a different angle to the world of bespoke fashion, my aims are to create the entire collection from second hand garments, either working straight onto old garments, or reconstructions garments and piecing them together to create something completely new.

This project will bring hopefully together and display all the  skills and working practices that I have learnt over my time at university, paying particular attention to ensure that my concept is the driving force throughout so as to result in a collection that has depth and meaning both to myself as a designer but also to the viewer.  I would also like to collaborate near the end of this project to conduct a photo-shoot for my garments, something I am already very excited about.

Internship at Tallulah Tennant

At the beginning of December I decided to apply for a number of work experience opportunities and internships, from which I managed to obtain a 2 month internship at the evening wear fashion studio, Tallulah Tennant. This was a really exciting time for me, although extremely nerve wracking!

As a textile design intern my job was to help assist with the upcoming scarf collection they where forecasting to release in Summer 2017, as well as assisting with gift accessory research and possible client liaison. My first day was really exciting and by the end of it I already had a long list of exciting new projects and things to research. Although at first I felt I may be jumping into the deep end, I soon began to realise the knowledge that I had to give when it came to textile outputs, I felt like my ideas where really acknowledged and appreciated by the team, which was a real confidence booster. My time away from the studio consisted of gathering a body of floral imagery that would fuel the concept for their upcoming scarf collection, I introduced the team to a number of different drawing style options from traditional watercolour, to more current graphic, pen and ink styles, drawing up a variety of different motifs to illustrate the options. I was also put in charge of contacting suppliers in regards to scoping out prices and fabric quality, both for the scarf and gift accessory collections. 

Bradford Live Brief

For my live brief I chose to take part in the Bradford Textile Society competition. In all honesty I was so involved in my self initiated work, that I felt I didn’t want to give time to a live project, meaning I selected to take part in a simpler brief so as to not loose too much time to live brief work.

Despite this, I still wanted to challenge myself and ensure that what I produced was an interesting representation of my practice to send to Bradford. I decided to conduct this project as a 2 day mini project, as this didn’t eat away at too much practice time and was also a personal challenge to see what work I could produce within a small production time. The category I decided to enter, required the production of a print that could be used upon multiple garments within a fashion collection. As I was in the midst of my second self initiated, I decided to use my research and themes of feminism and protest to create two fashion fabrics.  Originally I had produced simple fashion illustration to coincide with my fabrics, however after a tutorial with Julie, she suggested I should work more into my illustrations and attempt to tell a story on the page. After all my designs are extremely concept led, so in order for this to shine through my designs, I had to use my illustrations to their full potential.

Bradford Textile Design Competition Entries