EDITORIAL RESULT//PROJECT OVERVIEW

Overall I am really pleased with the overall outcome of the editorial. I feel that the photos portray the exact mood I was going for and fulfils my concept.

Even though there was a downfall with the lighting, I feel that it has made particular shots stronger and more professional. If I were to chose a publication to feature in, it would probably be between i-D and Hero magazine. This is because I feel that the aesthetics would run parallel and would be a subject matter that they both would want to talk about.

THE MAKING

From my final draping design, I immediately started to construct the piece together by entirely hand sewing it. At first this was an incredibly daunting task as there was so much to sew up in the timeframe I had scheduled.

STAND WORK

As said in a previous posts, for this project, I've found the most useful method of designing is working from the stand. I think the reason for this is that I find it hard to think technically when considering how an existing garment is originally constructed and how to manipulate it in my head. My more hands on approach to this, I feel has enriched the design process for me. 

From my experimental stand work prior and post unpicking the seam lines, I have reviewed which manipulation techniques and also silhouettes that I like and pick out elements from those to design with. I feel like this breakdown process has really helped me so far through this project.

Now that I have more a conceptual direction, I have more momentum to design with. I also have more of a connection with the project because if this. I'm finally fulfilling my weird fascination with the chav and pikey culture. So taking photos of them on the street doesn't class as weird anymore, it's purely research. 

As a sort of mid project review, this is the first project that I feel that I have really got in the swing of. This has been a turning point for me as I truly feel engrossed in what i'm doing which I hope will carry on through to future projects. 

THINKING ABOUT CONCEPT

From overviewing my stand experimentation, I have definitely favoured using the pieces of tailoring that I bought from the charity shop. I think this is due to the fact that they are already so defined in terms of their structure, it's more fun and interesting to play and manipulated them and totally reverse their previous aesthetic.

I took this idea and decided to turn it into my concept for this project. Taking the attire of the business man and subversively using it to portray the modern depiction of society's somewhat unmentionables, those with ASBOs and on benefits.

I remember looking through Instagram a while aback and coming across a user called @clothsurgeonstudio who had done the reverse of my concept. They had taken 4 Nike tracksuit bottoms and turned them into a full suit. In an ideal world I would have loved to do the opposite of this. However, realistically speaking time isn't on my side. So I will be focusing my time on making a sweatshirt like piece.

MY DAY WITH THE PHOTOCOPIER

For todays task, I was asked to have a play with the photocopier in order to create some designs via two different methods, simple block shapes and crease making. I found both a really interesting way of approaching the design process with I had never really used before.

DESIGN EXPERIMENTATION

From my deconstructing draping session, I wanted to do some designs as development from the experimentation. Although, I found it extremely hard to emulate the mood of my creations by purely drawing them. I kept coming to a design block and feeling uninspired despite all my excitement and enthusiasm front the previous draping challenge.

LET THE DECONSTRUCTION BEGIN

Today, we were asked to take apart the items that we had brought in the previous day and to deconstruct them to play around with them on the stand. I decided to take apart all the tailoring pieces as these confused me and were also the garments that I was most drawn to due to their structure. 

I totally underestimated the lengthly process that it was to unpick each of these garments. It was like a jigsaw puzzle in some sense. However lengthly the process was, it was essential to really experiment and exploit the garments bare bones for manipulation. 

DECONSTRUCT/RECONSTRUCT INITIAL THOUGHTS

I’ve had a few worries about this project as I’ve never really liked the idea of up cycling old garments into something new due to the fact that most don’t aesthetically appeal to me. I've always had this preconception in my head that the whole concept of deconstructing an existing garment is quite constricting as you are limited to only the fabric used previously. However, from today's initial tasks of deconstruct illustrations and also draping exercises, I feel that those preconceptions have been altered positively.

FINAL DESIGNS

JIL SANDER AW 15 MENSWEAR - DESIGNED BY BEAU SCARLETT-PITT - 07/11/14

JIL SANDER AW 15 WOMENSWEAR - DESIGNED BY SAFIA FLOWERS - 07/11/14

Myself and the womenswear designer, Safia worked very closely on our final designs with shapes and colour placement. 

THE NEW WAY MANIFESTO

This is our prologue for our collection. We are treating this as a teaser as such for press relations to get the promotion ball rolling for our campaign. I am really happy with it as I feel that it real emulates the collection and represents the rebirth of Jil Sander as a design house that we as a group are trying to achieve. 

WGSN

NO MIDDLE TREND REPORT - WGSN - 2014

Designing for an established design house, our group wanted to be considered as professional as possible. So we wanted to consult WGSN for their latest trend reports. We came across a particular report that actually coincided with our concept, "No Middle". 

We interpreted this as having no gap between the two genders. Somewhat of a gradient flowing between the two. We were all so pleased when discussing and researching this idea as it pushed more force behind our concept. 

We also took our colour palate from this report as prior to this I had been working in black and white. 

ELEMENTAL COLOUR TREND REPORT - WGSN - 2014

I feel as if the colour palate has created a unity between both genders showing that each colour is interchangeable and versatile. 

Part of me wishes that we had conducted this research on the first day as we could have played with the colour palate in particular more within our research. 

PAST COLLECTION RESEARCH

PAST COLLECTION RESEARCH PAGE- BEAU SCARLETT-PITT - 05/11/14

I wanted to do some past collection research to educate myself on common Jil Sander shapes and also the aesthetic of the brand; clean, sharp and simple. For this I looked at the most recent A/W collection  and drew the reoccurring shapes and styles.

When looking through many past Raf Simmons for Jil Sander collections, one collection that related to our concept was A/W 09/10. There were cinched in waists which touches on the verge of androgynous dressing for men. This is something that I hope to reference through my designs for the upcoming A/W range.

This piece of research, however fundamental was a tad boring. It didn't necessarily get my creative juices flowing but I suppose that this research needed to be done in order to remind myself of the designer that I am working for.

As part of further development, I hope to tweak these common styles and overlay my proposed shapes from my prior research on Eadweard Muybridge's works on the male and female figures in motion to see how the two clash or intertwine.

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE: THE MALE AND FEMALE FIGURE IN MOTION

In order to really focus on providing a gender-less aesthetic, I wanted look deeper into both body shapes and structures. From my concept board, I decided to look at Eadweard Muybridge's works on the male and female figure in motion. From this, I drew both gender's figures and extracted shapes and lines that were fundamental to both figures. 

From my interpretable drawings, I contracted that male form is a lot more angular than the female form and also that lines and shapes of the female body possess more fluidity. I then used this information and extracted the lines to then use them when designing. 

I really enjoyed doing this research as it has further consolidated my understanding of how to incorporate and consider both body shapes when designing. It has also given me more context to my initial concept. If I had more time on this project, I would have maybe looked further into cross referencing the two body shapes more to ultimately discover what a gender-less being would look like. 

INDIVIDUAL CONCEPT BOARD

JIL SANDER AW 16 MENSWEAR ANDROGYNY CONCEPT BOARD - BEAU SCARLETT-PITT - 04/11/2014

From the group brainstorming session, we all had the task of creating individual moodboards in order to piece together the group concept board. For me, this was a very important part of the design process as it helped me discover the mood of what I want to produce as an end result. I kept all the images in black and white as I wanted to concentrate on on the gender-less features as oppose to associating colour with sex.

I also wanted to establish the aesthetic of the Jil Sander design house early throughout my book so that I could channel the minimalistic edge that they have to their brand. I feel that this particular layout will help me throughout the design process and also to adapt my style.

It was initially a challenge to source images that weren’t directly fashion related as androgyny can be interpreted as a subculture of fashion. I went back to our group discussion board to find key words to search. This was when I started to looking into gender conventions such as "Boys don't cry.", "Hit like a girl" and "Men aren't capable of housework.". I found that these images much more interesting and they gave me more context as to what a gender-less being would be rather than scrolling through countless identical fashion images. 

As I was to be dealing with two different body structures, I wanted to gather some images of the male and female form. I came across Eadweard Muybridge's works on the male and female form in motion. These pictures offered me a different perspective on the structures of both bodies which I rate as a very important part of research for this project. This has lead me to delve further into Wuybridge's works for my next piece of research and extract ideas for designing.

Next, I wanted to look for a muse in order to always have an ideal in my head as to who I am designing for. I looked at the likes of David Bowie and Gary Newman, but I didn’t feel the connection to design for them because they are already somewhat established in the world of androgyny. After a few hours of trolling agency websites, I found my muse. German Zhuravsky. He portrays femininity and masculinity simultaneously which is what drew me to him.

Reflecting back on this process, I am really happy with my concept board as it has made me want to immediately start exploring androgyny artistically and start designing. Without doing something like this, I would have been stuck for ideas on how to start this project. It has really got the design ball rolling in my head and I am excited to present it to the rest of my group.

INDUSTRY - INITIAL BRIEFING

Today was the start the industry project. I had been asked to read the course handbook for details on the set brief for the next two weeks prior to the initial briefing. The brief read that I had to choose a design house from the following: 

Burberry

Meadham Kirchoff

Commes Des Garcons

Givenchy

Prada

Iris Van Herpen

Jil Sander

From this chosen design house, I with a group would have to create a fully resolved concept for their A/W 15/16 collection. Choosing a design house proved a difficult decision for me as I was torn between two in particular; Commes Des Garcons and Jil Sander. I was initially thinking that I would work best under Commes as it’s more my style of working, unorthodox. However, Jil Sander would provide me with a challenge as it’s relatively the polar opposite of Commes due to it’s somewhat squeaky-clean aesthetic. This decision did also co-inside with my most recent assessment as I was told that I need to work more on my shapes when designing instead of concentrating so heavily on crazily busy designs. Considering all of the factors, I made my final decision to pick to work under Jil Sander for the next two weeks.

Next we got into our allocated groups and started to brainstorm. We were given two quotes to work with. We chose however to work with a small section of the communist manifesto:

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and men at last are forced to face with sober sense the real conditions of their lives and their relations with their fellow men. (The Communist Manifesto)

We especially liked three sections of it:

“…solid melts into air…”

“…all that is holy is profaned…”

“…their relations with their fellow men.”

We first started to discuss the last part of the quote and it instantly made us think of androgyny. This was something that I found quite applicable to Jil Sander. Referring back to our initial briefing, we learnt that the Jil sander man would not sleep with the Jil sander Woman. This sparked a little idea within my group to in some sense relaunch the Jil Sander label as one of unity of the sexes. Androgynous and gender-less.

“All that is holy is profaned” also caught our eyes as we didn’t know what it meant, so we looked it up.

To treat (anything sacred) with irreverence or contempt; violate the sanctity of: To profane a shrine.

We related this to the previous section discussed as somewhat “breaking the gender rules” when it comes to fashion.

“Solid melts into air” appealed to us as it seemed like quite an interesting concept to think about. It reminded me particularly of  learning about chemistry in secondary school. However, there was ‘liquid’ missing from the equation. It felt like a blip had occurred, jumping from one end of the scale to another. For some reason this really interested me.

This particular activity was extremely important as it allowed our whole group to contract an understanding of what we would have to do over the next week and a half and also to understand the brand that we were working for. This process could have been improved slightly if we were more focused initially as a group due to the fact that we kept going off on tangents. 

It was really different to work with a group as oppose to independently. The brainstorming session felt almost catalytic! We all gave each other tasks that we had to complete in order to keep all parts of the operation moving.  I got given the task to conduct some research and produce basic shapes for garments to develop on from. 

So far, I'm really enjoying this brief as it has given me a chance to both share and collaborate my ideas with other group members. I feel as if we are on a role already! I look forward to how our concept progresses.