Menswear for Marc Jacobs

In continuation of our Application Of Design module, this is some of my design development work, illustrations and final flats of the garments I designed for my collection. My contribution to the menswear line has a focus on outerwear and some very outlandish press pieces. The collection incorporates mongolian furs, leather, denim, cord and knits and contrasts warm autumnal tones with cool wintery hues.

Application Of Design

Here are a few initial research sheets from our current Application of Design project. Again we are working in design teams and have each chosen a designer and WGSN trend. Our trend is entitled "Living Design" and our designer brand is Marc Jacobs. Between group members there we are either doing mens or womenswear. As you can see from the above images, I have a focus on menswear, and this is infact the first time I have ever tackled it. Our trend has elements of "creature comforts" and "products with personality" and so therefore I have decided to create a concept from this which I will use as a starting point for my research. I have created the idea of every person having an animal personality and wish to express this animal personality through the garments I will go on to design.

a curious dream...

On display at Culture Vulture, Leeds

Our packaging

Ingredients label reads: 1 watch face, 1 pretty strap, 2 ticking hands, 12 little numbers.

An image from our facebook page

As part of our enterprise module we were asked to set up a business on £10 each. Myself and a friend decided to do a collaboration and create a company together called "a curious dream..." We got our name from a line in Lewis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" storybook which inspired our collection of unique, handmade watches.
We collected an assortment of vintage watches then re-worked with beautiful fabrics to create a scarf wrist tie. We created innovative packaging using glass jam jars which featured out Alice-inspired branding including "Wear Me" swing tags and to add a quirky touch- ingredients labels on the jam jars.

We set up a facebook page as a marketing tool to advertise ourselves and allow people to contact us, as all watches were made to order. We also set up an online boutique on ASOS Market Place and created a collection sold instore at a Leeds based gift shop called Culture Vulture. We also had the opportunity to sell in a vintage store, Bird Yard but unfortunately this involved us having to work for free a couple of days a week each which we just did not have the time to do at that stage with our heavy work load.

Nonetheless our little business was quite successful considering the tiny budget and very little trading period we had. We sold all but 1 of our watches in Culture Vulture and also sold several to friends & family over the Easter holidays when we were both away at home in Scotland. Culture Vulture were so impressed with our product that they have asked us to continue business with them which is something we are currently considering!

www.facebook.com/acuriousdream
a_curious_dream@hotmail.co.uk

"The Angels of the Graveyard"

Here are just a few fashion illustrations I did for our trend book project at the beginning of 2nd year. We worked in design teams and were given a WGSN trend as a starting point. We then used this to create our own trend books depicting colour directions, silhouettes, fabric, designs and illustrations. Our original trend was entitled "mystical" which we developed into our own "ethereal." We created a colour palette using the theme of light as inspiration: pale hues, shadowy tints and glassy neutrals. Despite working in a team we had to also produce our own individual books with our own personal interpretation of the trend. I chose to research more into the spiritual, ethereal and religious elements and produced a darker, more gothic style. My first point of research was the gorgeous Glasgow cathedral and its graveyard Necropolis. Being there reminded me of the beautiful video for "It's Ok" by the group "Land of Talk" which I think I have in an earlier post. From the combination of these, I derived my concept of these creatures, "The Angels of the Graveyard" whom I centred my trend around. Overall, the project was rather successful and presentation and content of both the group and individuals' trend books were very well done. I always seem to work better when creating a concept or idea for myself to work from and this helps especially in terms of research. Rather than interpreting things more "literally" (taking an object or pattern and simply working with that to find my shapes, colours, inspirations etc) I like to create almost a story with my sketchbooks. It was interesting to use a WGSN trend as a starting point (usually a very "literal" tool in designing as colours, sihouettes etc are all given and in my opinion alot of pre-determined trend based work can curb creativity) and then actually develop it in a more personal way.

Chanel's Cruise 2012 Collection Short Film

Definitely an example of how models probably shouldn't be actors, however love the weird and wonderful from Karl Lagerfeld! Always a big fan of a Chanel mini-movie advert and so I do enjoy the promotional short films they, and other houses produce. Miu Miu generally also has some inspiring short films on their website which I love!

Water Babies

For our jewellery elective last month, we had to create a piece of body adornment. My personal focus was running water and droplets and I was inspired by the interaction the human body has with water. The first two pictures above, are a couple of examples of inspirational imagery and pictured third is my final outcome. It is a backpiece, with an aluminium collar and pewter and glass wax drops which were cast and suspended from the collar with thin fishing wire.

Aesthetically, I am pleased with the final piece, however I still feel that it lacks something and doesn't quite fully capture that delicacy of water. I did experiment with a wide variety of materials and did find it extremely challenging to capture a running droplet in suitable materials as it is hard to freeze a movement. Nonetheless, I still think after much experimentation and exploration of possibilities I still created a successful piece of body adornment.

I Just Want To Dream

Sometimes things can make everything seem like nothing. I'd rather just be little again, surrounded by fantasy and dreams of happy ever after. It's easier dreaming because your greatest desires can become real until you face the sinking feeling of waking up. I'd like to put some flowers in my hair, lay down in the field, close my eyes and dream the time away for a while so I can have everything that made me happy again....