Presentation Feedback

 For this week's session, we had to present our project through the blog post and give feedback to our classmates. It is really helpful when you can get something from another point of view and do the improvement, I believe the advantages of other's virtue is worthy of our imitation.

I had grouped with Nick and Aga on the breakout group, we had taken turns to present what we had done so far and here was the feedback Aga had given me.

This was the feedback from Nick:

Collaboration Task Final Result:

 

Two of us were all truly satisfied with this result. The background can fully present the factors which have influenced us into fashion, such as the famous magazine Vogue, the local culture of our countries and also the hobbies. These elements can totally express who we are and how to form our shape today.

In addition to the results of the project, I also really enjoy working with my partner Olga. I like how we were being honest to each other, telling what we like or even dissatisfied with, and we would constantly listen to each other’s opinions to make improvements, so as to ensure that we can present our style in the work at the same time. Furthermore, we were able to divide the phases of the project, so that the work between two of us was fair and balanced. Therefore, I thought this group cooperation was very successful. 

Beside that, for me, the communication skills certainly have been improved. English is not both of our first languages, but we had to use it to communicate through using Whatsapp. Although there might occur some situations that we don’t understand with each other, body language or image are always a nice way to know what others are talking about, so we had used pictures to help explain what we want to express step by step slowly. I know communication skills are very important for future employment, it is necessary for others to understand my idea, therefore I thought this project was quite a useful experience for me to enhance my speaking ability. If it is possible, I would love and want to try to collaborate with other classmates to create another project, it will be definitely very interesting and it helps us get to know each other more so it would be beneficial if there were more collaboration projects.

Collaboration Task Process

After we had some discussion and under the impact of the current epidemic, we decided to use a digital form to present this collaboration project. As the previous post had mentioned before, we planned to use the concept that we both are fashion design students as the main theme. Therefore, we conceived and came up with some result, research, cut out and paste the photo with those various people and things which had inspired us to do fashion design, and also maybe the traditional symbols of our countries as the background, posted and combine all the inspirations on the same screen, clearly express out how did they made us who we are today.

We decided to separate into two parts, including the portrait and background, each of us will carry one and I was handled for the portrait painting for this project.

The selfie of our selves:

In order to achieve a similar image color tone, I used the iPhone’s photo edit function to enhance the brightness and sharpness of our selfies. This would help me easier to outline the lines of both of us.  And this time I had also used the app 'procreate' to work with this project.

Here were the process that how I create them out:

This was the first draft with the combination result, I was imitating the process of cell integration, just like merging our skins together slowly, presenting a sense of connection.  However, Olga and I both felt that maybe the effect was too weird and scary, so I better needed to try another way to associate the result together. 

Finally, I considered the background would be made by various magazines and stickers, so I could use this similar design element to express another meaning with the face. Our face was just presenting half in this project, the meaning behind it was, fashion led us together, so we were like a tearing paper which had been glued together again, it just made us complete.

This was the reference with tearing paper:

This was the final result of the portrait:

This was the background result which create by Olga, you can know more information and the process in her blog post. ( Olgablogpost )

Reference:

Tear off paper scroll and rip hole blank concept vector image on VectorStock. [Online] VectorStock. Available from : https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/tear-off-paper-scroll-and-rip-hole-blank-concept-vector-26373411 [Accessed 24/02/21].

Collaboration Task Initial Ideas

For the collaboration project, we had to work in a pair to create a piece of work, therefore this class session we had to choose who we wanted to work with. 

My partner is Olga, she comes from Poland and what’s exciting part was, she’s the same with my progression route - fashion design. She loves design, sewing, style clothes and outfits, and also wants to connect her life with the fashion industry. Being a designer with her own brand, or a fashion stylist, a fashion manager, a fashion photographer, or a fashion show director were always the things she wants to do in the future. It can be seen how passionate she was in fashion! 

After introducing and knowing each other, we had started to brainstorm the ideas. As I had mentioned before, our common development direction was fashion design. So the first thing that popped into our mind was, we grew up in different countries, Olga is European and I am Asian, raised and grew up in different ways. We had also been exposed to many people and things which affected us...However that is one thing we both are passionate about - Fashion. So we just wanted to start with this point and developed our project.

Olga with her classmates photo:

Me and my classmates photo:

By the cause of the enthusiasm for fashion design, it brings us to the same university and with the same group, this is how fashion associates us together. This has inspired us to think about various connected expressions. Two lives, but striding forward for the same dream.  In addition, due to the traditional thoughts and culture of Hong Kong, I do believe in fate, there are invisible connections between people, everything must have a reason when you meet someone, hence I used the similar concept into the project. 

We had considered that we are also the only protagonists in our life, therefore we magnified this point and focused on ourselves, maybe the face or the action... still didn't decided yet and need to continues develop with the draft. Here were some basic drafts we had done.

Collaboration warm up exercise

For preparing our collaboration work in pairs, today's class session we had looked at different artists whose work in collaboration and also we had done a warm up exercise, drew and imagined the image that our tutor Zoe had described to us.

‘You can see a face it is a mans face, grizzly and marked, his mouth is but a black slit and his hair a nest of dirty matted strands, his eyes are emerald green, piercing and shining, looking right at you, seeing into you…’ 

This is the result of my selves:

This is the result of my classmate. It was interesting that everyone was not the same, they all had the same main features, but not with the age, the beard, the hair...there were lots of creative pieces here that I had didn't expected with.

 

Experimentation

 

https://www.whizzpast.com/victorian-hairstyles-a-short-history-in-photos/victorian-hairstyles-lady-harriet-georgiana-brudenell/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret_Sarah_Carpenter_Portrait_of_Harriet_Countess_Howe.jpg

Lecture Artist Research: Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O Keeffe

In week four, we had a lecture series two with two artists, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O Keeffe. Our tutor Zoe had shared about their life, the works they had done and how they keep influencing each other. I had dropped down some notes and here I would talk about some introduction and my own opinion of them. 

Alfred Stieglitz was a famous photographer who born in New Jersey. He had proven that photography was a medium as capable of artistic expression as painting or sculpture in his life, and also he became a leader of photography’s fine-art movement in the United States .

Georgia O’Keeffe was an American painter who born in Wisconsin, she had created innovative impressionist images and modernist paintings, good at painting with enlarged flowers, skyscrapers and landscapes. She was already interested in art when she was small, although she studied and worked in the art school, she was still not satisfied with her work and kept longed for a style of her own, wanting to capture the feelings and gracefulness that she had seen in the world.

In 1916, they met in the exhibition of Marsden Hartley works, 58 years old Alfred Stieglitz was already a famous internationally acclaimed photographer and O’Keeffe was only 28. He was totally obsessed with O'Keeffe, they just shortly fell in love and began a romance and artistic journey.

After they got married, O’Keeffe had started painting the flowers. Her flower paintings were filled with bright, expressive color and passion, they really attracted viewers wanted to have a closer observation even though she had already enlarged the size of the flowers, she just succeeded in arousing people to take time to observe these beautiful things. For me, it just seems like using the close-ups function to capture the moment. It's really interesting that we are like using the point of bees, butterflies to view with those flowers, huge and seductive.

I really appreciate and like her work, they are so simple with the colours, shapes and lines. Especially after Stieglitz had passed in 1946,  O’Keeffe moved to New Mexico to work on her paintings which were really peaceful and solitude. She captured the vastness of nature : the long cloudscapes of the southwestern desert, the adobe, the shadows and natural curves of the bleached animal bones. Most of these paintings had only just worked with 3 to 4 colours, but she had created a sense of poetic style, bringing out a calm and patchy feeling.

Reference :

1. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138467808/stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters?t=1613001209517

2. Jackson, K (2019). The Symbolism of Flowers in the Art of Georgia O’Keeffe [online] artdependence. Available at: https://www.artdependence.com/articles/the-symbolism-of-flowers-in-the-art-of-georgia-o-keeffe/ [Accessed 10 February 2021]

3. https://www.artst.org/okeeffe/

4.https://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138467808/stieglitz-and-okeeffe-their-love-and-life-in-letters?t=1613001209517

Skills Development : Self-portriat

As I had mentioned at the previous post before, for this semester our project would be working by using 2D skills as same as the last term, we can draw it by hand or using the digital way to finish the outcome, and also I had decided to use the iPad app ‘Procreate’ to work with my project. In able to enhance our drawing technique, this session we had done a skills development, draw out a self portrait by using pencils on the paper.

This is the final result :

What do I know about fashion design

 What should I be doing in my subject area?

I watched a lot fashion reality show, there were showing some process so I know a part of the work...get some inspiration from researching no matter designer, artist, environment...and then sketch out different basic design that you are interest first, keep editing and then start material exploration in the same time, paste and put on the fabric to the mannequin, figuring out which is the most suitable. After that, sketch out the design draft with the human size on the fabric, there would be separate different part and structure on the draft, cutting out and then combining to form a cloth by using the sewing machine.

I think create out my own design is always be the important thing

Trying to do the trend and make the fashion being your own sign on the session.

What skills and knowledge do I need for my subject area?

I need to learn about the basic skill for sketching the template, for instance illustration, photoshop, the way to present and perform to people, how to develop the idea to form a design and the way to create a design .

What jobs can I get by studying in this subject?

Create own fashion brand, get into local brand work as a team

If I scored myself out of ten, with ten being the highest, how well do I think I know my own subject area?

I would scored myself 5/10, cause I don't know much about fashion design the actually what the process is, what I had seen is alway be the final result, the model who stand at the stage.

Designer research - Cecilie Bahnsen

Researching about the romans fashion trend, it must be mentioned with Ceilie Bahnsen who is a Danish fashion designer and really well known at designing romantic, voluminous dresses. These amazing design were made in different beautiful fabrics, also manage to be pretty but never too saccharine at the same time, this is the way how her design being attractive to the industry.

Bahnsen was born in Copenhagen. She had recently completed her MA at Royal College of Art in London. In her early life, she had attended the Danish Design School and met a designer Anja Vang Krag, who just led her to work as first assistant after she graduated in 2007.  Under this position she had worked on freelance projects for Christian Dior as well as the Royal Danish Theatre. After that she had been moved on to do an internship with John Galliano in Paris, where she was subsequently hired as first line assistant and print designer. These had gained a lot of experience for herself and she felt it was enough for her to start her own line. In June 2015, Bahnsen had succeeded in designing her brand's first collection,  also in 2017 she was selected as a finalist for the LVMH Design Prize. These attractions had quickly taken the attention of fashion glossies and behemoth department stores, and started becoming famous in the fashion industry.

Bahnsen’s design always focuses on voluminous shapes and romance, and her signature is femininity, sculpted shapes and unusual textures. She had done a lot of exploration of the fabric materials, achieving an effortless feel and a style that would radiate wearability is always being one of her goals. Since her first collection, she had kept working and processed her significant sign, for instance gauzy baby-doll dresses in powdery pink, white blouses with billowy sleeves, and jackets with a school-girl quality. 

Models for the final walk on the runway at the Cecilie Bahnsen show during the Copenhagen Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2019

“Galliano influenced me in the way he would push every idea to the limit – it was very much about the process. For me, to be pushed so far from my Scandinavian background was a good thing. It’s definitely shaped me.” said Bahnsen, so it can be seen that she mixes her background with the minimalistic Scandinavian design together. This combination of simple and minimal really what makes her brand being unique and special.

 

This design is come from Cecilie Bahnsen's FW20 collection

This fashion session has caught my eyes. Frozen tundra in Russia’s Kola Peninsula became Behnsen’s inspiration for this project, so it can be seen that she not only used her iconic colors, white and black, but also added gray tones of blue to reproduce the color of the design background. In addition, I had mentioned from the previous post that I was very attracted by her uses of materials. This season also gave out a surprise. Behnsen had used and explored the skills of weaving and tailoring in every set of design.  Mixing different elements with the fancy texture will bring out a sense of simple and clean when they are paired with a sweater or jacket. They are in the same collection but have different characteristics of each at the same time, which is very admirable.

 

Her design has inspired me that I can try to draw multiple textures in the same design, one color tone but carry out different visual effects. I also observe that she used some skills in her design. In order to be more feminine, she has at least one way to show off the female figure in every design, whether it is a perspective material that shows the vertical beauty of the collarbone or the shoulder, peg-tops cutting, knitted vest with oversize dress, these designs skills had shown the way of feminine and romantic. Maybe I can reference her dressing skills into my project, I don’t know what and how I can process them, but I will try to use what I have learned from this research and add it to this project.

Reference :

1. INSIDE THE MAKING OF CECILIE BAHNSEN'S ROMANTIC FW20 COLLECTION, (2020). HYPEBAE. [online] Available at: https://hypebae.com/2020/1/cecilie-bahnsen-fall-winter-runway-show-copenhagen-fashion-week-backstage-danish-designer-interview [Accessed 3 February 2021].

2. Meet Cecilie Bahnsen, The Designer Bringing Danish Fashion To The Foreground, (2020). Forbes. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrysamaha/2020/02/03/cecilie-bahnsen-copenhagen-fashion-week/?sh=5a9455505d97 [Accessed 3 February 2021].

3.Cecilie Bahnsen: Introducing the designer behind fashion's prettiest dresses, (2020). BAZAAR. [online] Available at: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/a30497653/cecilie-bahnsen-designer-interview/ [Accessed 3 February 2021].

4. Catching Up With Copenhagen Fashion Darling, Cecilie Bahnsen, (2019). WWD [online] Available at: https://wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/copenhagen-fashion-cecilie-bahnsen-interview-1203364673/ [Accessed 3 Feburary 2021].

5. CECILIE BAHNSEN FW 20 REVIEW, (2020). EDITORI ALIST. [online] Available at: https://editorialist.com/news/cecilie-bahnsen-fw20-review/ [Accessed 3 February 2021]

Research & Practice : Who am I

Researching others, we can know how the work is influenced and come from where,  everything is connected in the world, so how can we know the importance of researching? Today's class session we had done some exercise to know ourselves more deeply by drawing out the important memories or things that we had so far, getting to understand why we research others. I chose using the digital form to finish this exercise, it would be easier to zoom in or out when sketching the details. After drawing out the outline and then started to keep filling the body part with our memories.

Let's start with the bottom first - the early life of myself. I had a completed and perfect family in my childhood. Because of living in those old tenement buildings which had lots of casinos around us, lots of crime in this neighborhood,  so I can remember the noise of people who were drunk and shout clearly under that environment. I am glad that I have a younger brother, it's always being interesting when there are two people. My mother always took us to various extracurricular activities and this busy, fulfilling life made us a broader vision and learn more than others. 

Moving up the body, getting into primary school, I found that I am not smart, not clever but at least I'm working hard, I did more and prepare more than others, but unfortunately this still can not help me to escape and hover into the worst class of the whole school. Everyone hoped to find the personality, being cool and unique at that time, same as I and I was tired of being invested. Therefore during the rebellion, I had become abominable, from bullying others to being bullied by others, cutting the classmates hair to get acceptability...this nightmare didn’t end until high school. 

 I started to go to church and restart my mentality. I joined many clubs, met with lots of classmates and friends who just meant a lot for me, we went through lots of ups and downs together, however the good times didn’t last long. My parents were divorced,  my mental health problem started being worse. I didn't know how I could help with the expense so at the age of 15, I started to work part-time after school. Trying to reduce the burden of my mother, at the same time my mentality was about to collapse. I had to run for director and prepare for the entrance examination, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Therefore it can be seen I added a crack in my half body. I don't know how I get through with this predicament and I don't usually want to think or either talk about these memories, because it's just been a past tense already.

The Hong Kong social movement in 2019 has also changed a lot for me, the most influential thing in my life happened during this half-year. From peaceful demonstrations to bravely stepping forward to resist, I took the first aid course and got to help people under the environment which was full of tear gas.  Still from now, I feel depressed and emotional when I am writing this paragraph. If it were not for the incompetence of the current government and the arbitrary arrests, I might not be able to sit here and tell you about my story, maybe I am still living in a occupied political environment for survival.  

It is true that the stories behind each person affect their thoughts and ways of doing things. Due to the fact that my parents were divorced, my artworks had been mostly painted in black and white in middle school. So based on this exercise, I fully understand that research is not just about their work, it is also the way to know their background, how they influence, how the final work performs like this, everything is getting related with each other. Hope at the following artist research blog post, I can recover more about how their background to extend and form the work, develop the research process more detaily.