Developmental research presentation - Fashion consumerism and the effects it has on the world culturally, socially and environmentally.

As a nervous public speaker, prior to the presentation I was nervous to present my work and speak publicly about my work and my philosophy. As much as I would have loved to talk freely without any notes or cue cards I would never have remembered what I had intended to say and feel like I would have struggled and effected my grade without them. However in the future I aim to be more prepared and practice my public speaking in order to get across my information easier and without having to look at cue cards to remind myself. 

I felt that my presentation went well and I was able to speak freely to a certain extent by reminding myself every now and then with the cue cards I had made. With a history of stuttering and mispronunciation I am always nervous to speak in front of a group, but my group was patient and I feel I managed to express myself successfully without these issues getting in the way. 

After everyone had completed their presentations we had a quick discussion on how we think they went and what we could have done to improve. Our lecturer, Gill, also announced that everyone in my group had passed (including me) which pleased all of us, everyone in my group was amazing. 

Mentoring

A session was arranged to meet with the first year fashion and textile students the past week to potentially guide them and answer any issues or questions they have. Myself and Laura met with several girls who were worried about their upcoming PDP presentations, which I completely understand why. Whilst I was in the first year, I was filled with nerves for my first presentation as I am not a strong public speaker and was extremely worried about my out coming mark, however once completing my presentation I realised that I had overthought the whole process, as much as its important to succeed and gain a promising outcome, it wasn't as professional and formal as I thought it was going to be. I reassured them and told them about our experiences last year, we suggested to pick a subject that they feel strongly about or interests them the most as it is much easier to talk and work from something that you care about rather than not.

The use of images are extremely important and useful in the presentation as it is a visual presentation and also helps distract the audience and gives them something to look at (rather than you, which if you struggle speaking publicly, is extremely helpful). Although speaking in public is a big obstacle to overcome for some people, you have to realise that everyone in the class is in the same position as you and are probably just as worried as you are, which is what we advised them.

Another concern of theirs was the visual essay, as well as the presentation, its a first for them and they may not have touched on the subject since A Levels or GCSE (which I know I hadn't). I was extremely panicked with my essay as I often struggle to write and structure paragraphs, which is where an essay plan came in extremely useful. We also told them about all the help and information that Gill and Kerry will give them to help them throughout the task including how to Harvard Reference. I also prefer to start my essay in the first paragraph or middle of the essay rather than the introduction as I struggle to start at the beginning at times which I told them.

The past year has gone so fast and it is almost unbelievable how I'm over half way through my degree already! I enjoyed helping the first years and advising them on their work as I appreciated the help and advise I received from the second years last year.

Writing/judging the visual aesthetics and criticism (Matt Bowman)

• Aesthetic development
• Significance and value of artworks by focusing on the form of the artwork and art experience
• More technical usage – distinguish from philosophy of art
• Philosophical aesthetics and the philosophy of art – used interchangeably as terms, generally representing different philosophical approaches to understanding the significance of art
• Immanuel Kant – The Critique of Judgement – in this book he examines the philosophy of aesthetics 
• Aesthetic judgements (i.e. Saying something is beautiful) = disinterested judgements
•  Disinterested judgements focus on the form of artefacts not on their meaning, context usefulness, politics, morals or anything extraneous to the artefacts form.
• Aesthetic judgements= reflective judgements
• Aesthetics judgements are not determinate judgements
• Reflected judgements are not based on rules
•  Universal voice or common sense
• Jeff Koons – Michael Jackson and Bubbles
• Louis-Michel van Loo

In terms of my studies the overall aesthetic of a garment or fabric are highly important and often affects if you purchase the item or not, i.e. if the fabric of a garment is corse and rough you might be less likely to wear it compared to a light and soft fabric. 

Development of Textile Boundaries - Monument

Being mainly construction and fashion focused, I was pleasantly surprised at how excited I was to start this new textile project. We spent a lesson looking and discussing three trends that were chosen for us, Graceful, Monumental and Sartorial, all of which held different traits.

Graceful:

Sartorial:

Monumental:

The brief's aims are to further explore the techniques and processes we completed and studied last year by creating a range of samples in response to our chosen trend.

Considering all three trends, it was almost obvious which trend I was going to choose given my lack of colour in my previous work. As a fan of monotones and simplistic prints I was pulled towards the Monumental trend.