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.