Fabric Sourcing in Soho

So I took a trip to London to visit some friends and soak up the atmosphere and do some fabric sourcing.

I decided Soho would be the best place to explore as I wanted some really heavily textured fabrics aswell as to have a look at the types of fur available, real and faux. I have been fabric sourcing before but in the hackney area and I knew this wasn't the right area to start searching in. 

Here's a collection of some of the textures and colours I found that I feel would work well in the concepts I have in my head. 

Im still unsure about the real/faux fur and I don't know which one to go for. Im going to have a think about it and maybe do a post on it soon.

I think that these textures would work well on a small scale maybe worked in with some leather or plainer materials? I'm definitely going to use the scaly material in some of my designs as I love the way it catches the light and how it moves. It reminds me of Prada's collection.

Im not sure about the feathers, I think they look at bit cheap so I don't think they would work so well. 

It was a really inspiring trip and I was amazed at the difference in quantity and quality of the fabrics available compared to Cardiff and the surrounding places in Wales! It makes me want to move to London right now so all of that would be in my door step. 

Joanna Hynes & Helen Steele

My favourite discovery of the summer was this collaboration between Joanna Hynes and Helen Steele.

Joanne Hynes is a fashion designer and Helen Steele is an artist and they are working together to redefine the established ways of combining the art and fashion worlds. Their work is focused on "the present, the gesture and spontaneity of creating," which they to capture in the designs. Their aim is to produce living works of art and fashion. By experimenting with these two art practices with such crazyness and fun the pair challenge trends of minimalism and tailoring, and resemble the warrior queens who inspire them. This is raw creativity and very exciting to see.

http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2011/ready-to-wear/joanne-hynes-helen-steele

http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2011/ready-to-wear/joanne-hynes-helen-steele

The clothes are truly beautiful. The contrast of colours is eye popping. Theses two coats remind me of a mature technicolor dream coat or a creativity cape! I imagine when you put it on it transforms your personality and mood. You could never be unhappy when wearing one of these coats!

People would look at you and most likely instantly like you as they are so colourful and the fur is such a soft, tactile fabric.

I really like the mix in the pile of furs and how the colour is placed. The pops of colour bring out the colour even more than if it was an entire pink or orange jacket as its contrasted against the natural fur.

http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2011/ready-to-wear/joanne-hynes-helen-steele

I was really drawn to this cardigan, I don't think it is as wearable as the coats but it would be a huge statement piece to try and carry off! Im not sure I could carry it off. I love the colours in this again, the contrasts really draw you in.

Im not sure where you can buy these but if anyone finds out let me know I need one of those coats in my life!

Designers

I have discovered a few new inspiring designers and collaborations over the summer from browsing on other blogs and through the fashion websites but they have been mostly in womenswear. I tried to find some menswear designers that reflected where I wanted to go with my concepts but there wasn't much I could find apart from Chanel's fur jumpsuits.

Chanel fur Yeti suits!
coolspotters.com/photos/378103/chanel-fall-2010

I think some aspects of this could work on a smaller scale maybe with different textures and lengths of the piles. I think its a bit over the top and its not quite cold enough in Britain for anything like this!
I do like the different colours of fur though especially the greys.

Joanna Hynes and Helen Steele
http://www.joannehynes.com/

The next inspirtation I found was Joanna Hynes and Helen Steele. I love this collaboration and will talk about Hynes and Steele in a seperate post but in this garment I love the colour and textures. It just screams out British Regency, its like a cross between a fox hunt and a glamorous dinner party!

Maison Martin Margiela
http://eboutique.maisonmartinmargiela.com/

This modern twist on a classic is very clever by the genius of Martin Margiela. Im not sure if I like it or not I think. I really like the jacket and I think it would be more effective if it was just the jacket with some different garments. It's just a bit too much grey for one image the way it is here!

Prada
http://www.prada.com/en

Well what can I say about this! This is amazing and it rounds up most of my research from the summer. I love the way the light reflects off the scales and the contrast there is between the smooth scales and the rough fur. It makes you want to go and touch it. I love it as its so unusual and you would get second looks walking down the street in this but this isn't always a bad thing! I would love this jacket for the winter it would be such a statement and I can imagine it's one of those garments that everyone would be jealous off.

WGSN Trend Research

I have done alot of research on WGSN in the last few weeks, I avoided it at the start of the summer as I wanted to get a theme and story in my head before looking at trends as I feel that this can stunt progress in the design process and influence you into unoriginal research. 

WGSN.com

This was one particular piece of trend forecasting that I did find beneficial as I wasn't aware of the tweed and fur cross overs and also that velvet can be used as a faux fur.

WGSN quotes that "Wild fur inspires a new, savage outerwear aesthetic. Grizzled and coated effects add a rugged appeal to luxury velvets, while napped and needle-punched tweed

emulates manipulated and shorn fleeces."

I would like to use these materials mixed in with knit to create the mishmash concept I can picture in my head! I just need to translate these onto paper and into designs!

Couture Butchery

This is a butcher and clothing shop I found on coolhunter.com that is based in Sydney. It perfectly combines my themes of vulgar and unusual beauty. Its a nightmare with all the meat hanging around but the clothes are beautiful and everything is displayed like art, even the meat is beautiful. The textured walls of the restaurant are really cosy and I think I would feel like I'm a teddy bears stomach of I was in this room. Its the perfect contrast to the butchery in the shop.

I'm not sure how I feel about this shop. I really love the concept and it looks beautiful on the internet but I think if I was to visit the shop it would freak me out abit!

I would definitly love to lie on these walls!
victor chuchill butchery

These textures would work on the garments maybe in knit with a contrast of the long pile walls and then the sculptural foam. This could be translated into knit really well.

Victor Churchill Butchery

 I think this would really work as a way to display clothes in a conceptual way and to have them going round so peoples attention is held.

Victor Churchill Butchery
Front of the shop

Work influenced by the last few posts

Images from the book and my sketchbook

Here is some work I have created influenced by images from Where the Wild Things Are. As you can see from the amount of posts i've posted on this its been a huge influence on me this summer!

I used different piles of fur to create different textures on the animals and I really think they work together well to create a subtle contrast. 

I have discovered through these experiments that I really like the contrast between the different piles of fur rather than the different colours of fur together.

I have also started messing around with design concepts but I haven't got anything that I think would really work as a concept so far. Hopefully I'll manage to work out some concepts that work from the images in the book and film and be able to work it all out. 

Where the Wild Things Are part 3

This is an image taken from my research book.

Nearly at the end of my posts about this! 

This is my ultimate favourite quote from the film and therefore it deserves an entire post!

This quote is from the film version of Where the Wild Things Are and it is said by the beasts when Max decides to get in his boat and leave the animals. They totally confuse their emotions like children and confuse their sadness with anger. They do not know how to express themselves which is the recurrent theme throughout the movie and they threaten to eat Max as this is the only way they know how to express their emotion, they are so taken over by love they want to consume and absorb it. 

I can relate to this as I often get this overwhelming surge of emotions, but it definitely doesn't make me want to eat people! It just makes me want to cuddle people really! All in all it sums up the innocence of childhood emotions again.

This quote made me think of the swirls and the pattern around the quote as I like how the emotions in the movie make you go through highs and lows and round in circles again. I used the different colours to represent the mishmash of characters and textures within the movie. 

Thats the last of my posts on this movie but if you haven't seen it yet it's a must! On a dark winters night get snuggled up with a hot chocolate and indulge in this fantasy world.

Where the Wild Things Are part 2

In this post I'm going to talk more about the film adaptation than the book as they do vary in the depth of the story and I think the film is more of an adult fantasy film than a child's film. 

I love the beasts within the story. In the book the illustrations are beautiful. The beasts have a real human cross over. Some of them have human feet but are then covered in fur where as others have horns and chicken clawed feet. They are totally brought to life in the movie and its so worth a watch! It will open up your imagination and heart. 

Plastic dolls of the beasts.
Courtesy of Doobybrain.com

The main difference in the film is the depth that Jonze takes the beats personalities. 

They are very reflective of human emotions and when you watch it you will so be able to relate to most the situations and emotions! 

They are vast, feathered, horned, clawed, beaked and definitely wild — irrational and dangerous, even when showing affection.

You've got Carol, who is an impulsive wild thing,

KW is a loner,

Douglas is a peace keeper,

Judith is a pushover,

Ira is an aggressive and suspicious girlfriend,

Alexander is ignored, belittled and mistreated

and Bull is a quiet intimidating but hulk of a beast.

The film has many positive quotes through out it and this is one of them. We should never stop dreaming, hoping and imagining. This is something that we sometimes loose sight of when we grow up but we should never stop and this film really hit this home for me so I decided to right the craziest ideas and hopes down and I am going to do something about every single one of them!

My favourite quote from the movie.

I also think that the story is empowering to children and is the opposite of a nightmare or Brothers Grimm story as it is enabling children's imagination in a positive way as Max overpowers the beasts are scared of him and he is brave and no harm is done. 

I would like my designs to reflect this mismash of emotions and contrasts in behaviour and also aesthetics. I want something colourful but dark, warm and protective, textured and smooth, big but also small. I wonder if this is possible?!

My favourite image from the entire movie when all the animals and max are at one with each other.

Where the Wild Things Are

Naturally after the Secret Garden Party I had to revisit Where The Wild Things Are as it brings together all of my ideas and memories from the summer. 

 

This has a real nostalgic pull on my heart strings as I was read this book as a child and me and my brother would play at being max and the beasts! It has since been developed into a feature length film by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers that I am also a huge fan of. 

The front cover of the book. 

The basic outline of the story is of A young boy named Max has an active imagination, and he throws tantrums if others don't go along with what he wants. Following an incident with Claire (his sister) and her friends and his Mother paying more attention to her boyfriend than to him - max throws a tantrum and is sent to his bedroom by his mother. He runs away from home wearing his wolf costume at the time. Max not only runs away physically, but runs toward a world in his imagination. This world, an ocean away, is inhabited by large wild beasts, including one named Carol who is much like Max himself in temperament. Instead of eating Max like they normally would, the wild things befriend Max as he is not scared of them and he proclaims himself a king who can magically solve all their problems. He gets caught up in all of the beasts separate issues but also manages to make them have fun and gets them to dance by declaring that the wild rumpus has begun. He eventually misses home and realises that he can't save the beasts from being upset and angry. He realises that sometimes people do things they don't mean and that people are complicated so he decides to leave the beasts and go home. When he gets home he finds his mum has left his dinner by his bed and its still hot so she does still love him.  

I love this story as it is simply about childhood innocence and how children aren't adults and do confuse their emotions and don't yet understand how other people feel or why they do things. 

Im going to do a few posts about this as I'm fascinated by the story and the imagery involved in the book and film.

p.s. Im thinking of using the front cover as the colour palette for a autumn/winter collection what does every one think? Maybe too bright or too green?

Not so secret garden party part 3

Ok so this is my last post about this festival now!
The had a whole range of entertainment at the party including a paint throwing sub-party where people bought bags of powder paint and were able to throw them and cover people in gorgeous paints, this is very similar to the Indian festival of 'Holi". 


By far my favourite section was the adult toys section! This isn't as rude as it first sounds it was pure and innocent fun. They set up adult sized playgrounds which made you remember your childhood innocence and you couldn't help but get carried away and become as free and easy as a child. I loved this section of the festival as it was just amazing to watch everybody's transformation and seeing people have fun by improvising and using their imaginations. 
The quote in the image below summarises this for me. 

Image Nick Caro.   King Stag with tribal twist.

The theme really fitted in with my research and I was fascinated with the realisation on how we prepare our children for adult life as soon as we can and then as soon as we become adults with responsibilities we want to escape them all and become children again. We love nothing more than to dress up and swing around in playgrounds! We don't get to do this in the real world as society would think we were a bit strange so this weekend enables those wishes so we can become like children once again. 

 Everybody just let themselves go and didn't think about the stress of reality. I would totally recommend this festival to anyone who wants to just get away from it all for a weekend. You can be anyone you want to be and everyone is so open minded, anything goes its incredible! Just leave all of your sensible and rationale self at home as you wont need it for this weekend.

Not so secret garden party part 2

This festival was so amazing that I thought I would spread it out over a couple of posts to keep your attention! 

Everyone dressed up as their animal alter-ego inspired by "Where the Wild Things Are" and it was really interesting to walk around and observe everybody in their costumes as you could see peoples personalities by what they were dressed up as.

 Fancy dress is fascinating like that, for example when you go out and its fancy dress you can pretty much predict which one of your friends will be the most outrageous and which one will be the most boring! At the festival you had every type of costume and personality. There were alot of the alpha males dressed as stags (a couple even had a clash of antlers) and then the naughty deviant latex bunnies and then the shy mice contrasted with the minxy minnie mice! 

Danny North

http://i.imgur.com/zgkSt.jpg

This image sums up the weekend for me you can see all the animal alter egos. The king stags there and so is the minnie mouse minx!

I love the way this image is styled and would like to use it in my work for a shoot at the end of this project. I almost get the feel of a rabbit caught in headlights when I look at it with the outline and bright light. Maybe thats what it looks like to be a rabbit caught in headlights?!