It Begins

Some Beauty Ideals in History - B.C

 

 

 

 

 

Hans Bellmer

  

One of the themes that Hans Bellmer explores is the idea of perversion. Inspired by Freudian concepts, Hans Bellmer explores his own sub-conscious and expresses them in a sculpture series of "young maidens."  His goal? "To construct an artificial girl with anatomical possibilities... capable of re-creating the heights of passion, even to inventing new desires." 

His work fascinates me for many reasons, especially in our post-modern society where we are constantly bombarded with images of ideal beauty and sexuality.  A brave (especially in his time - 1930s) and very personal approach to exploring the inner workings of our sub-conscious desires. 


His work inspires me to explore concepts of physical desire through stretch fabrics - I will start my exploration this week by using stretch fabrics to create illusions of anatomical modifications and will post my findings by the end of the week.

Body Modifications

Some inspirational photos considering body modifications to kick off my project research: 

The Karen tribe of Padaung, Thailand 

Photograph by Chris Rainier 

 Wounded Amazon Statue

In Greek mythology it is believed that Amazon women cut off one breast for improved archery skills.

 Scarification 

A technique among African tribes to mark passage into adulthood and considered aesthetically pleasing.

Knit Wits

Today in class with Feride, we explored knitting.  When I worked at Abercrombie, they put me in the sweaters department (I knew zip about knitting). While I picked up on the theory of it quickly, it was nice to finally learn about it in practice. Once we had the basics down, my classmate Jo and I turned martial arts sticks (basically broomsticks) into large knitting needles in the woodwork shop and used them to knit together long strips of Neoprene (kudos to Liz who kept this stuff since 1992).

Then I made some yarn out of an old T-shirt and knitted it together:

Before

After 

I plan to explore the idea of turning old T-shirts into knitting - perhaps in my millinery class I will explore knitting toques out of them.  I would also like to explore using old swimwear to create yarn for knitted bikinis.  This could be a good way to re-use old swimwear instead of taking them to the second hand shop (because that can be just gross...)

Brainstorming for Stretch It Project

I'm happy to say that the "Generic" portion of our stretchwear studio is done and I am handed in.  Not as happy with the outcomes as I could be, but surprised that it all came together in the end and I came to some interesting conclusions about the definition of generic garments.  I'm excited to see how it will affect the second half of studio that focuses on an open self directed project. 

Some ideas that I have been throwing around include:

1. Exploring the notion of the ideal body shape and emphasizing how unrealistic the standard can be.  It will include using different methods to over exaggerate the female ideal (ie. big breasts, small waist, etc.)

2. Still exploring the notion of the ideal but focusing on an alternate universe where the ideal is completely different than it is in our society.  This would include emphasizing unconventional silhouettes and exaggerating completely ridiculous body parts (belly button, one breast only, arms, neck, etc.) to come up with new silhouettes.

3. Focusing on the ostrich, an animal that inspired my eveningwear dress in 2nd year, exploring the its silhouette more extensively, its texture and personality.  

Outcome: Decorate or Integrate?

Decoration vs. Integration technical: 

 

Decoration vs. Integration toile:

Ceci N'est Pas Une T-shirt

Through the design variation exercises, I have explored and challenged the definition of these generic garments by changing their structure.  However, after discussing the styling in the Jill Sander collection I started to consider what happens when you change a garments context instead of structure?  Does this also change its function?

A T-shirt or hat?

A T-shirt or pants?

A chair cover?

A pillowcase?

A nana brief or hat?

A nana brief or jewelry?

Integration and Decoration: Origami

I'm currently working on exploring the world of integration as a form of decoration in design. The perfect example of integration as decoration is origami inspired garments. It's more common than I realized to use origami techniques when designing clothes as many designers have done it, but perhaps the reason is that there are endless possibilities and amazing outcomes.

Designers Mauricio Velasquez Posada and Jum Nakao (see below) have come up with some incredibly successful designs using origami as an inspiration. However, it is difficult to tell exactly what material is used in these designs.  It looks like paper, but I can't be sure.  If it is not paper, they have managed to accurately imitate the properties of paper, which contributes to the design's success.  

 

Project White T-shirt

What a defines a T-shirt?  I used to think that it was its characteristic T shape.  However, after analyzing the T-shirt designs from www.projectwhitetshirt.com, it's evident that that isn't always the case.  Take a look at some of my favourites and you will understand what I mean.

 Photos from www.projectwhitetshirt.com

Common elements: a hole for the head and the colour white. 

... and that's about it.

The T-shirt: From Undergarments to Eveningwear

The evolution of the T-shirt is an interesting one that began in the 19th century as undergarments and slowly evolved into an acceptable outergarment and today is the most commonly worn article of clothing and a staple in every wardrobe (you can argue me on this but let's be realistic - who doesn't own one?).  It has even become one of the most powerful mediums for dissemination of information and expression in post-modern culture. 

However, I never thought I would see the day that the T-shirt became acceptable eveningwear attire, and alas, Jil Sander (SS 2011) took it in that direction.  While it is arguable that these outfits are intended to be worn as eveningwear, they certainly are headed that way.

 

 Photos from www.style.com

Inspiration: Neil Barrett Leggings

Photos from www.style.com

I love his juxtaposition of leather and stretch fabric.  It is important to note that leather does actually stretch to some degree and therefore could be considered a stretch fabric.  I will definitely keep this in mind when I am designing for the class.  It would be neat to explore the degrees of stretch from unconventional stretch fabrics such as leather.  Love the sheer leggings as well - another fabric that I will be sure to keep in mind in my designs.

Ctrl C/Ctrl X/Ctrl V

Design Study: The Singlet

Inspiration: Millinery Just For The Nonsense

Millinery is not really in my nature - I have found it increasingly difficult to become inspired for the class until this blog by Loren Anthony James-Wood came along. 

http://millineryjustforthenonsense.blogspot.com/

  

My favourite? The Steam Punk Pilot hat.

Raegan Went To RMIT And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt

Assignment: Design a T-shirt using only geometric shapes

 

The Toile:

 

The Reflection: 

Looking back at this exploration, I am not sure that I went in the most exploratory direction.  I did not play around with the shapes as much as I would have liked.  Instead of exploring shapes such as triangles and circles on their own to see how they would drape on the body, etc. I just took the structure of a T-shirt body (a rectangle) and fit triangles into the rectangles.  I am disappointed that this is the direction I went with this assignment.  However, I did find it interesting that simple square shapes could make very nice fitting sleeves and a nice fitting collar with no alteration to the basic shape.  

Adventures In Stretchwear

 

With Shmuv From Melbourne

I am currently on a journey, both literally and creatively.  For all of those who don't already know, I am a 3rd year design student from Ryerson University (Toronto) on exchange for a semester in Melbourne, Australia.  While I've only officially been in Melbourne for a little over 2 weeks, I've been in Australia for a month and a half and am loving every minute of it.  However that portion of my journey involving hostels, kangaroos, surfing and goon is not the one that I choose to focus on in this blog, but rather the one that begins with my first class at RMIT, STRETCHWEAR GENERICS (there is nothing generic about this class!)

The most valuable part of attending RMIT is the ability to take courses with subject matter that is not available at my home institution and the opportunity to learn in ways that vary from what I am used to.  I chose to focus most of my time on the stretchwear studio with Ricarda Bigolin and Feride Peel for this reason... and to say that I am pumped about the course is an understatement.  (In fact, I was so keen that I showed up a day early... oops).  The course is experimental, explorative and conceptual in nature - dramatically differing from the technical nature of Ryerson's curriculum.  

Here's my class schedule: