WEEK 4 & 5
- Tessa Wishart
- Aug 20, 2021
- 13 min read
Updated: Sep 16, 2021
3rd - 16th August
Both my weeks 4 and 5 have been significantly hindered by being ill, which has unfortunately set my timeline back by a week. For this reason I've combined the two weeks together. It is my hope that this is time which I can recover by working through my mid semester break, given that all of the work I'm completing must be done at some point. However, this has led me to redevelop my personal timeline as below. My Proposal deadline, originally due on August 10th, has now been extended to August 17th.
Timeline
Working Process Timeline
An Analysis: Nude: Art From the Tate Collection
Emma Chambers and Justin Patron 2017
Flesh and Form: Redefining the Nude in the Twentieth Century
This book recounts and displays a large series of nude artworks and life drawings from the Tate collection, varying over different time periods and divided into several themes, some of which including historical, private, modern, body politics and vulnerable body. The book stood out to me as a source because this is the collection which was brought to New Zealand and I viewed personally in Auckland in 2017 as 'The Body Laid Bare'. The range and depth of subject matter in the artworks serves as strong inspiration for me and the work which I intend to develop.
From a more academic standpoint, the essay written by Emma Chambers about Flesh and Form has stood out to me most: Chambers examines the central practice of painting nude form through the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, and the developmental change of political views of the appropriateness of portraying the feminine form, and the intentions which the given art may be intending to portray. The Naked and the Nude heading describes the differenced in portraying artistic form, as most famously defined by Britain's Kenneth Clark (1956): the naked may be defined as the undressing or undressed, yet personalised; while the nude only describes the entirety of the naked form itself, approached by the artist in view of only form and serene detail as an educational study or practice. Too overtly sexualised or individualised an image was defined by Clark as naked rather than nude: he discussed several historical artworks as being naked which has been subject to strong controversy for going against these traditionalised institutional standards, including Manet's Olympia (1863) and Matisse's drawings. (One of which in the collection being Draped Nude, 1936) Just as similarly, in 1870 British responded to Millais' The Knight Errant criticised it for nakedness given how the form was seen as too personalised: as being 'scarcely as chaste as unsunned snow', and naked 'because she evidently has been in the habit of wearing clothes.' (This artwork in question was later discovered by art historians using X-ray to have first been painted with the head and torso angled towards the knight in a more confrontational interaction, which was later altered to develop a greater show of modesty.) These beliefs significantly shifted through the twentieth century, as the practice of academic nude painting shifted into portraits which challenged the nature of the artistic male gaze, and naked artworks became inherently political and identity based, despite any level of explicitness.
Chambers, E. & Patron, J. (2017). Nude: Art From The Tate Collection. Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Nude Art Studies and Traces
As below, I conducted sketch exercises reproducing the artworks within the exhibition in ink and pen to begin to develop and consider the mood of the intended collection.
An Analysis: The Workwoman's Guide
By a Lady
I've viewed this particular book as a source from a historical perspective displaying the geometric and inherently low waste pattern styles practiced historically in making conventional garments. Holly McQuillan (2020) identified as how zero waste is not a new idea, and has instead been practiced historically though many cultures, partially as a volume based garment practice, including in Grecian Styles, Indian Saris, Scottish Kilts. The practices in this book begin to become more complex with developed seam work, which allow for better practicality and better form for cloth to body relationship. This book demonstrates zero waste and low waste practices in a traditional and wearable way; as well as including many examples of traditional styles of handcraft; both of which I intend to integrate into my present work.
Hale, S. J. B. (1838). The Workwoman's Guide. Simpkin, Marshall and Co, London.
McQuillan, H. (2020) Zero Waste Systems Thinking: Multimorphic Textile-forms. PhD Thesis. Edited by L. Hallnäs. University of Borås. http://hb.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1478307&dswid=-429
Strip Cut/Spiral Jacket in Zero Waste Design Application
I can't help but notice how beautifully the linework in the Spiral Jacket I made in the last collection aligns with the linework in the nude art and life drawing I've been examining, and bears similarities to the other above designs. This style of fitting pattern pieces into a gridwork formation correlates with the historical grid pieces from The Women's Workwear Guide and historically zero waste tunic and kimono styles. It would arrange well on many different styles of fabric, and defiantly may be arranged on the bias for a better level of drape. The style of strips on the above Alexander McQueen design, appearing to be chiffon style raw edged strips, are layered beautifully in a tiled style to create volume and dimension on top of a base shape. Cutting fabric into strips and then reconstructing it is also low waste in the way that it begins to bear similarities to length cut craft techniques - eg. lengths like yarn, ribbon, lace or other notions are only cut as far as required so as not to generate waste.
Analysing and Adapting Existing Zero Waste Patterns
This pattern was by far the most restrictive of all those which I developed last semester - the pair of pants being approached from a conventional tailoring start-point and then trying to engineer low waste solutions from this was difficult and restrictive, making for some incredibly difficult offcuts and very abstract or gesturally draped secondary undergarments. I certainly don't intend to develop any patterns to this extent of difficulty in my upcoming collection, as I feel the importance of my time must be considered and conserved to better apply elsewhere.
Holly McQuillan - Make/Use Patterns
Beyond the beauty of the layout of the patterns, I also particularly like the format of printing of pattern pieces, and handcrafted construction techniques.
McQuillan, H.(n.d.). A modular system for zero-waste fashion. make/use. https://makeuse.nz/
A study of zero waste skirts leads me to consider the slanted gather as a gathered panel on a skirt; and the skirt with insert triangles as a base for a simplistic design for one of my first toiles.
Design Developments and Range Ideas
At this stage I started to hit a wall in design progress and realised that I ought to begin to switch over to half scale and paper 3D experiments in order to incorporate zero waste design ideas at an earliest level in aid of design.
Zero Waste Trials
I wanted to start really basically to job my memory on using zero waste ideas, and use more relaxed zero waste approached compared to last semester so that they would apply a bit more easily to different widths of fabric. I started with this zig zag gathering exercise, which didn't make a huge impact with pimpled sections of gathering as I'd expected, but could possibly work better at a bigger scale.
(Fabric taken from fabric scrap rubbish bin).
Then, for my first form-follows-process design I used a flared triangle and rectangle wedge pattern to make a small half scale skirt mockup. (Fully recyclable.)
Denim Jacket
Shirt Pattern to Denim Jacket - This collared shirt by ZWW may suggest how a jacket adaptation may be made for a more conventional style fit - I've especially noted how the sleeve is divided into several sections for easy cutting and
Jolkkonen, S. (n.d.). Collar Shirt/Kauluspaita. ZWW. https://www.zww.fi/kauluspaita
Given that I'm still early in my development of my range plan and designs, I'm looking a bit closer at some of the garments I AM definitely intending to make. One of these is a denim jacket - the jacket should be zero waste and slightly oversized, to be worn layered over a really beautifully dressy detailed silk dress and undergarments (or similar) so as to dress down the outfit and make it slightly more casual. I should hope for the garment to be one of the hero pieces of the collection so to say, as it should be very detail based, include print work and be highly impactful.
Below: Some of my early visual mapping to show how I'd love the jacket to look
Below: Pinterest board of shape and detail inspiration
I shouldn't like the actual design of the jacket to go too far off of a simplistic design to begin with - I think that converting this into a zero waste pattern as a primary garment will give the piece more than enough design variation. Secondly; as above I've really latched onto the idea of applying an interior silk lining of printwork into the denim jacket. (Most probably in Van Dyke or Cyanotype with layered printing and colour work. I could also attempt to dye cyanotype prints a bit darker/blacker if I wanted). I think that this SS21 McQueen work of photographically mapping historical garments and then printing them onto the exterior of new dresses was etherial and just stunning honestly.
And wouldn't this image be just divine printed onto silk in the inside of a jacket??
(Sourced from Pinterest, 1750-1770)
Early Sketches and pairing with layered under dress; possible denim corset as Secondary garment to jacket final toile - could be made in trial denim OR better possibility is a mid weight cream canvas which would take really well to any form of printing!
Fabric Choice
Both fabrics are 146cm wide - I sourced the Vintage Weft denim from The Fabric Store at an extra discounted price ($36 for 4.5m), and am almost finalised on the herringbone denim as my toiling fabric, and need only to know what yield to buy after making at least one iteration of my pattern. Most likely, my printed lining will be done (zero waste) using a section of the Ivory Habatai silk I brought. The reason I went with this thicker denim option, as opposed to the organic cotton I considered a few weeks ago, was because apart from the economical benefit of it I really liked the acid green tones running though it, as I feel that they fit in well with some of the other silks I've purchased and my overall colour values to draw the collection together. All I need to really decide is whether the print colour of the lining will be cyanotype blue, van dyke brown or some variation of the two.
Raw Denim?
I've worked with this denim before and it is quite this handling to begin with, and does rub off some amount of indigo dye when working with it and wearing it. The denim is quite heavy wearing but has softened up really well in a skirt I made with it, and would soften even better as a raw denim piece. I employed raw denim principles with my Blue Blood denim project - it is the practice of using unwashed indigo denim to make a garment, and then waiting at least six months to wash the garment, to all for the indigo to become worn and then gently washed out to reveal really impressive wear patterns that are very individualised to the garment wearer. Beyond this, raw denim is also a massive water saver and promotes mindfulness with garment care and generational garments. It aligns very well with my interests in high quality garment construction and detail.
I do really like the fact that the concept of the raw denim jacket is that it's made to fade and grow as a timeless and generational piece. I should defiantly be mindful of shrinkage, but I just don't think that I would find reason to need to wash the jacket much, and the care tag would only suggest gentle cold hand washes because of the printed silk lining. (The print materials can definitely handle this but silk shouldn't be exposed to anything more than hand washes anyway. I think another way to both reduce need for washes and reduce deterioration will be not to line the silk deep in the underarms of the jacket, because the denim will hold up much better to wear in the underarm areas than silk will.
I will use raw denim principles, and just be watchful and careful of dye transfer.
Fabric Considerations
Given that I'm primarily taking colour inspiration from this Sir Matthew Smith painting (from The Body Laid Bare Exhibition), and the fact that printing cyanotype and van dyke colours match this exactly, I'm beginning to source colours based on these fabric choices.
Given that I intend to create the van dyke and cyanotype colours, I needed an ivory coloured material of silk quality, so I sourced 8.3m of Ivory coloured Habatoi silk (114cm wide) to use for this printing. Will work for both primary and secondary garments - it is likely that I will use this as a final for one primary garment to be printed, and as a secondary for another by using as final toile fabric for the previous primary garment.
It's very important to me that all of my materials are entirely natural based. I do not intend to use any sort of blend fabrics that have synthetics assed, like elastane/lycra, so that the garments can be as biodegradable as possible. Next week I'll have to evaluate what this means for my approaches with garment hardware and notions like thread, metal hardware, elastics and trims, etc.
For Reference: My first toile fabric -CALICO- is 146cm wide.
When toiling based on fabric width, I can simply shave off the excess width on the side since this is quite wide fabric (and the silks I've chosen tend to sit much narrower), and keep it to use for binding on toiles (or in future) so that nothing is wasted. Even if not used immediately, binding is always useful to have and small strips can be sewn together to make it continuous.
(My denim is the same width - 146cm - AND the natural coloured denim twill I'm looking at as a fabric option for final denim jacket toiling and then making in to a Secondary corset.)
Fabric Choices SO FAR - Owned and Considering
Some purchased this week to be economical with sales and fabric availability limitations...
(Note that main colours of brown and blue will be printed onto ivory coloured fabrics - )
(I've also tried in the past to cyanotype print onto other coloured fabrics like teal - it muddies the colour a bit but can work out to really good effect!!! Should do some trials on acid yellow coloured fabrics...)
As explained above - For Denim Jacket and Denim Jacket Final Toile → Secondary Corset
4.5m ($36), 146cm wide, The Fabric Store 146cm wide, NOT BROUGHT YET, Miss Maude
100% Cotton Denim 100% Cotton Denim
Owned 5.5m 100% Silk Gauze would match well: Silk Gauze Terracotta Colour $20.80/m
Ecru Colour ($85) 112cm wide 32% Silk 68% Cotton 130cm wide
The Fabric Store Drapers
I haven't purchased this terracotta silk yet based on un-finalised designs but think it would work really well as a final fabric, while using the ecru coloured silk (brought on heavy discount) as a final toile fabric. The reason I'm so attracted to this ecru silk as a Secondary garment fabric is because I think it would work so well as a surface to cyanotype/van dyke print on - and I think that I could design and print really successful lace designs similar to these below by Madalynne and Fleur of England:
Habatai Silk 100% silk - 8.3m owned ($139.44) 114cm wide. The Fabric Store.
For use with Cyanotype and Van Dyke Printing to hold colour.
Owned 3.2m. 30% Silk 70% Cotton 137cm wide ($43.20). The Fabric Store.
Ideally for use as Primary Final Toile and then Secondary Undergarments.
2.5m owned ($22) 100% Silk 114cm wide. Soft Acid Yellow. The Fabric Store.
May be worth buying more!!! Unsure of purpose yet.
Owned 2.5m ($15) 100% Coated Cotton Ripstop 'Sticky Finish' 147cm wide. The Fabric Store.
Would need to wash before use - still unsure if using or not. Relaxed acid yellow.
2.5m Owned. ($18) 165cm wide. 100% Viscose Black Marc Jacobs Knit. The Fabric Store.
Unsure if using knit or not but purchased just in case; would work well for undergarments.
Owned 3.5m. ($42) 130cm wide. 100% Silk Chiffon. Black. The Fabric Store.
Also considering... as a bright spot of colour if needed.
The Fabric Store.
Range Lineup (So Far)
I must justify the ongoing development of my collection range lineup as being dictated by ongoing explorations in zero waste patternmaking due to my practice of process driven design; which are already well underway. As McQuillan observed in her PHD work (2020), the development of zero waste clothing must include patternmaking practices incorporated at the earliest levels of design to allow for the best economies to be achieved. I look forward to continuing to develop these designs in the next days to entirely finalise the collection through further 3D experiments. (Note that all experiments are conducted either in recyclable paper or general facility textile scraps at half scale.) With this said, I have identified several significant pieces within the collection, including a (toiled) printed silk bra, a matching ruffled bra and panty set with printed lining, a zero waste primary organic denim jacket with printed silk lining, as dress or skirt with fan lacking and aluminium etched hardware buckles, and a dress with etched aluminium feature shoulder straps. Ongoing design must be achieved to process how the primary garments may be constructed in specified final toile fabric material, so that this scrap material may then be made into secondary undergarments. For the same reasons, the placement of colours within the collection is also yet to be determined. I also work in a very detail based orientation, so some design details are being developed at earlier stages to fit within the collection.
Toile Garment Design Developments
I began this first toile to finish for my proposal assignment deadline (handed in along with my cyanotype silk bra) designed very loosely, as I intended to follow more of a form-follows-process style when applying simplistic zero waste patternmaking techniques so as to be time efficient. I began by applying the zero waste skirt applications I'd sketched above, so as to come up with the outcome of either a dress or skirt.
To develop the skirt, I chose a 130 width and began to develop the skirt using flared wedge triangles, eventually finding that I didn't have to cut off the rectangular ends of the smaller reverse triangles because the angles were so soft. I also drafted an edging piece to be a gathered base panel as I'd earlier experimented with.
I then developed the skirt to have open sides, an opening slit in the back, and a rectangular drafted short underskirt. I sewed tabs on from binding strips cut from the side of the calico to aid in lacing, although in a more developed toile and final garment I'd intend to use machine sewn eyelet holes instead.
Etch Cutting Trials and Printing Documentation
As I had a piece of pre-coated aluminium with wax ground for hand etching with acid etch (the same material I used to develop my buckle from my minor work for this bra toile), I wanted to create two buckles for fan lacing rather than using less sustainable and less traceable pre-fabricated buckles.
I drew these sketches, and then scratched over the image placed over the wax ground on the metal sheet to start to etch out the image. One fully scratched, with other designs, the metal is backed with vinyl to prevent etching corrosion of the other side, and placed in a copper sulfate bath for 30 mins. Once I'd etched all of these designs I was able to partially cut them seperate using a guillotine (with intentions to use a hand saw to cut them close later - I was able to use them to print some early drafts for using to flesh out my project.
Whilst I was working on these fan lacing buckles, I also decided to etch metal strips to possibly use as a feature piece with etched metal straps. (OR alternatively, as print plates to use on straps. I printed all of the etch plates onto both paper and silk/viscose.
(I developed the plates with some nude sketches oriented forward, as frontal images, and then the other images on the top of the strips placed upside down as back images of females to be shown as the plate curves over the back of the shoulder.)
First Primary Toile
I think there's a lot of details here that need adapting, and I'll begin to adapt this over the next week. But I think what this has most demonstrated is how a simplistic zero waste approach will begin to develop my collection, and how incorporation of details and printwork will allow it to grow to be more high impact.
(I do strongly question whether, as a graduate collection, if the collection is high impact enough. I will continue to work on this most.)
Comments