V&A Trip: Horst, Disobedient Objects and Retail Therapy

                             

 

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum on the 18th November along with the rest of the first years from the Fashion and Textiles class at Colchester Institute. Whilst at the museum I visited the Horst: Photographer of Style exhibition which displayed a huge range of Horst P. Horst's work.

Horst created images that transcended fashion fashion and time effortlessly. He was seen as the master of light composition and atmospheric illusion due to his well known visual style of using dark and dimmed lighting with the occasional spotlight in the background or shining upon the model or desired object. Horst was a regular visitor to The Louvre (Paris) as he had a big interest in ancient and classical architecture and sculpture which is clearly shown in his work which often features some sort of ancient Grecian styled pillar or sculpture as a prop or part of the background set.

As mentioned earlier, his work withheld a prominent style of dimmed lighting creating visually beautiful, dark photographs. Although not everyone saw them this way. His darkened lighting often caused disagreements with Vogue staff when working with them. Edna Woolman Chase declared that they had been lecturing Horst about the lack of lighting in his photography and how he must overcome this style to shroud everything in the deepest mystery.

I really enjoyed his black and white portraiture of actors, models and artists alongside his newer coloured fashion photography for Vogue. The 1930s ushered huge advancements within colour photography which Horst adapted quickly and effortlessly creating some of Vogue's most visually daring and dazzling colour images.

                      

                      

(Above is a collection of images which I took whilst wondering around the V&A)

Another exhibition I saw was Disobedient Objects. "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you." The exhibition focuses on the period between the 70's to now, a time which has brought many new technologies and political challenges. Examining the powerful role of objects in movements for social change the exhibition demonstrates how political activism drives a wealth of design enterprise and collective creativity that defies the average definitions of art and design.
I learnt that many rights and freedoms we enjoy in this day and age were won by disobedience, which was made very obvious to me through the art work displayed in the exhibition. Each work of art individually withheld an important message; solidarity. We cannot change the world on our own, in order to change the world we as a community must stick together strategically in a common cause for movement building.
The artwork was not made by commercial designers, but by people collectively taking design into their own mindset and hands to change the world in their own way. Many of the artists and designers worked under duress with limited resources and used only their imagination and creativity to produce such art.

Although the power and incentive behind the pieces were extravagant and bold, paying great detail to the meaning and message behind the artwork I didn't feel the connection and lust towards these pieces as I did with Horst's art work.

After visiting the V&A Museum, myself and a few other girls from my class ventured around London to Harrods and various other shops for some retail therapy. We then jumped onto a train back to Liverpool St. and dined at GBK (which I was kindly introduced to by Amy which I am very grateful for!) which was amazing.

Visit from F Ciment Pleaters

On the 17th November, we had a visit from a pleating company called F Ciment (Pleating) Ltd. David introduced himself, the company and what the they do.

David went on to present the wide range of pleating samples he brought with him. Roughly 50% of the designers in the SS15 London Fashion week are clients of F Ciment's alongside the Queen. The company even pleated the fabric for Marilyn Monroe's classic white dress worn in 'The Seven Year Itch'.

The process of their pleating is a lot simpler than I first expected. He showed us that a pattern is folded onto two pieces of cardboard which is then stretched flat with fabric in between. The 3 layers are then squashed back into the pleated shape and pressed or steamed for a desired amount of time. (However any pleat under 12mm is pleated using a machine.)

Here are some images taken by myself of the presentation and samples;

F Ciment (Pleating) Ltd: http://www.cimentpleating.co.uk/page1.htm

Mono Printing and Creating Textile Prints

The previous week we were asked to look through our sketchbooks for motifs that stood out to us in some way or another and ones that we felt relevant to our project, and draw them in fine liner on plain white paper. Using these motifs we experimented with mono printing, collaging and many other techniques.

                           

I scanned my outcomes on the photocopier, playing with size, mirroring and inverting. Using these adapted photocopies we were set the task of creating a collaged piece, 50x50cm which will later be exposed on a screen for our final print.

            

I really enjoyed the eyes which I had taken inspiration from a hand stitched portrait of a statue featured previously in my book. I played with different sizes, placement and quantities of the eyes until I came up with a design I was pleased with. 

Using our final prints we then creating companion prints using paints, collaging and photoshop. Although I enjoy practical work I much preferred my digitally made prints using photoshop (probably due to my OCD neatness!). Here are some of my favourite companion prints;

                        

                             

   

Half Toiles - Gathering

In my Support Module class the other week we created half toiles experimenting with closing darts, gathering and shortening/lengthening panels. I started off with half a column dress block with darts placed on the breast. By closing the darts I created a A-line dress which flared at the hem. I then split the block into three pieces, a breast panel, middle panel and a hem panel which I added half the original width onto to create a larger piece to gather.

After stitching, pressing and over locking, this was the final outcome;

 
Here is a close up of the gathered panel. By using the straight stitch sewing machine with a wide stitch (Stitch 5) I stitched along the top of the panel with threads either side long enough to pull. By pulling one of the threads it slowly gathers sections of the fabric, after pulling and evening the sections you sew onto the other panel as normal.

Using the same original straight column dress block I created another pattern with the dart placed on the shoulder instead. By using the same closing technique in the past pattern I created another A-line dress block.

I added an extra 2cm onto the seams of either sides of the dart creating two slightly more flared panels. I split the side panel into two pieces, a breast piece and gathered piece. Like the previous toile I then added half of the width from the bottom panel to its side in order to create the gathered look, this time on the side.

This is the outcome of the second half toile;




I really enjoyed this lesson as it allowed myself to experiment with new techniques within the pattern construction side.