Textile transformation, shaping the body with cloth.

This lecture was about the way people use and used cloth and textile to reshape their body depending on the fashionable silhouettes of their epoch.

Waist: the waist has always been a big obsession, I feel. it is probably because it is the part of the body that if changed can make you look totally different. the manipulation of the waist dates from the ancient civilisations, the Greek goddess already used clothe to accentuate it. I the 1920's people use to paint over the negatives of the picture to appear with a thinner, slender waist.

In fashion history it is important to know the French designer

Paul Poiret who helped the women liberate from the corset; that was the beginning of the end of the extra thin waist.

Listening to the waist being reshapes to an unnatural look, Barbie come into my mind,

apparently the waist of the doll and her body proportions are unreal.

Men also had the pressure of a perfect body shape and they also use to reshape their waist.

Shoes: the shoes were also used to accentuate the body shape, the poulaines, men's shoes made them appear with extremely long feet.

Another masculine example of body exaggeration, is the zoot suit of the jazz singers and then every body, and xxxxl suits regardless of the man's size. Cab Calloway in a zoot suit

The shoulders: the shoulder pads of the 1980s, accentuated women's shoulder give a message of strength and masculinity, it was a the time women started to fight for their rights! funnily it is coming back not in an imposing way but a decorative one.

It is funny to notice that people that are thin want their body to look curvier and change their bum's shape and the people that are curvy want to look thinner and straighter by using underwear that suck the shape! The grass is always greener on the other side!

seminars notes:

The seminars are so interesting because we can just share our thoughts!

We talked about the morality of fashion today, of the image fashion give women and men of how we should look like, how influenced are we? I believe that we are extremely influenced by fashion trends, it is just everywhere and by being so it becomes natural to us, but without a lower impact on the way we want to be or look!

I personally think that I will never be happy with the way I look but by being able to say so I am suddenly much happier! as long as I am healthy and comfortable in my own skin, then I try not to care to much about the fashion trends that are thrown at us!

We also discussed about the respect of our body, in some cases "shaping the body" has come to an extreme; snake tongue, whole body tattooed and pierced or excessive plastic surgery... It is as if we are and will be eternally unsatisfied with our body, we need to improve upon nature!!!What happened?

And an obvious example is Michael Jackson, an the mystery behind his appearance, what went into his mind, how did he feel about himself, and how his change of colour has always been tabooed, never been deeply looked at!

orientalism; the notion of exotic

orientalism:

orient: is a wide group of country
the west conception of the east, the orient.

the west interest in orientalism dates from a long time, some paintings can be very offensive nowadays.
Delacroix - the death of sardanapalusThis image is very strong in the way it shows white men domination, they are shown as strong and very above the others, particularly women in this painting.

Jean- Leon Gerome - the bath

this image shows a black servant bathing a white woman, it is really showing what is was like back then.

Henriette Browne, a women artist, paintings are much less fancy that the ones of men artists, their take on orentalism was less flamboyant.


Importing orientalism, some example:
Turkish textile, 16th-17th century: very luxurious
Italy and Turkey had a very associated with luxury, it was very fashionable to be painted in orientlism dresses.


seminar notes:

The notion of exotic: my personal idea of exotic is warm, sunny, far and very different that what we are used to here.

I was sitting next to a girl that comes from Japan and the conversation came to a ask if the oriental, or the people from places that we, westerner, consider as exotic, consider the West as exotic, and funnily the answer was no. the notion of exotic is rarely associated with the west.

The other direction our discussion took was the cultural habits of a country and if it is dissapearing, by the globalisation, an open-mind that make all culture mix.

Will the tradition and the cultural habits that made a population what it is die, because the customs and skills are not passed on the new generations? If I have to be entirely fair, well, they will probably... but the exciting bit is that as human beings need to identify themselves to some sort or group and community, our traditions and skill and customs will evolve and renew.

I believe that even though the world is a big cultural mix, there isn't a loss of identity as said before, human beings need to feel that they belong somewhere and it is very common that in a continent, countrymen are proud of their nation, in a country, citizens are proud of their regions or cities, in a cities, people are proud of their borough or neighbourhood, and so on... I feel that in this big cultural mix that we live in, our identity is not only preserved but it is stronger than ever.

My personal experience is from the time I came to live in England, I come from Switzerland and while I was living there I never felt very patriotic, it was always a bit silly to love your country so much, but now that I am in surrounded by so many cultures I feel more Swiss than ever, iorientalism: have learnt to love the place where I come from, because if I forget it, I feel that I am losing a part of myself!

culture attitude towards morality and ornament

culture attitude towards morality and ornament:

key text: Loss. A (c1998) ornament and crime pp.29-36
It was in 1908 when he writes, that explains his sometimes very closeminded ideas... very pro educated people and slightly elitist, personally find him a arrogant...

" the evolution if culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from object of daily use"

less is more, plain and sleek is a sign of good taste and high class;
for cultivated people "ornament does not increase the pleasure of life;
the lack of ornament is a sign of intellectual power, (...) use at its discretion (...)

seminars notes:
the definition of ornament give it a very positive connotation; at the opposite of Adolf Loos idea.
the definition of morality present a choice between the right and wrong.
so basically we discussed what was our opinion on ornament? are we more less is more or more is more? do we feel guilty we we indulge ourself ? buy a pair of shoes that we know we don't really need?

I personally think that a person's reality is always different, depending on where he was born and how he was educated. We are very lucky here in England to have much more that what we need materialistically, but i also think that we cannot feel bad about everything we do or buy; it is like life has given you a bonus and if you don't not try to make the most of it then you didn't deserve your luck, it is very hard to be so critical on ourselves, it hurt to see how spoilt we are and that sometimes we do not make the most of it.

ampoule: Jimi Hendrix music criticised for being over ornamented, now he is a music legend

TED Lecture Impact Lectures 3

The End of the Life Cycle

reuse, recycle, restore

maximum conservation of resources:

1. avoidance and minimization buy nothing day on 27th November 2010
2. reuse ebay and charity
3. recycle repair, refurbish
4. recovery incineration and composting
5. disposal

cases studies: ask more about them at the TED department.some are names of things I liked but need to

• trigema biodegradable cotton T-shirt
• Korea, use of rice husks to create bricks for houses
• Slow fashion/ Fast fashion TYVEK
• grow fabric
• the un-cooled recycled extrude
• Holy McQuillan Blog
• Timorisannen Blog
• Local wisdom Project, stories of garment

Holly Berry

www.redesign.com

hollyberryideadesign.blogspot.com

re-think

re-create

re-design

re-educate

recycle

fast fashion: there is no point making textile that will last foreverif we are throwing it away.

the paper dress the invention

Albert Einstein
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

TED Lecture Impact Lectures 2

The Middle of the Life Cycle

• Consumer use, emotionally durable design.
• Life cycle of a T- shirt:

• disposable paper dress, great response to through away fashion and over consumption, short life but can be recycled and re designed!
• replace the need to consume: make emotionally durable design, co-design
• promoting a cause, choose an issue to battle and promote your concept

artists and books:

Junky styling

Crowd Sourcing; catwalk genius

the uniform project

Katherine May

• use peoples old clothes to co-design quilts
• she works with three other designers sharing a studio- bricolage
• she used her groing up storie, her love with human cointact and interactions in her business, she created emotionally durable quilts
• Jonathan Chapman writings inspired her in doing something sustainable
• she got her idea already at university but only collected thing for it, and she looked at her old sketch book for her actual work
• recycling factory, in Italy she went and get off cuts
• during one exhibition the bricolage group were knitting and attracted a lot of attention, people want to talk to you when they see you doing something
• her inspiration: nine lives project and Becky Early, wedding dress project - up cycling

Digital Design:

BonBon Kakku sell your ideas

Spoon Flower design and print your own fabric

• computer art
• facilitator
• digital print as a bespoke

Digital print:

30% less water

45% less electricity

overall dye wastage

www.makeitdigital.blogspot.com

Jean Paul Gaultier Summer 2008 Haute Couture

Examples of macrame and lace , and also because I just love his work.

http://madame.lefigaro.fr/mode/defiles/femmes/9/466-jean-paul-gaultier/collection

more especially slides 11, 22, 25, 30, 34, 38.

Kniting: fashion, craft, art and technology by Sandy Blackk

Even though I have chosen print CAD as my specialization, I really like knit and this lecture was really interesting.

Knit, some aspects:

• duality, universality
• 2D and 3D
• underwear to outwear ( 1st seamless knit: socks and stockings)
• engineering knit
• craft and technology

Some examples:

• first punk knit by Vivienne Westwood
• hand knitted Jean Paul Gaultier Collection (not found)
• Julien MacDonald revolutionary hand knit and lace
• Freddie Robins , the knitted wedding blog and Freddie Robins interview on knitting.

http://www.castoff.info/wedding.asp

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/features/knitting/designers/freddie_robins/index. html

• Louise Gouldin, very young and refreshing knit

http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2008RTW-LGOLDIN/

• Kenzo 2008, amazing knit

http://nymag.com/fashion/fashionshows/2008/fall/main/europe/womenrunway/kenzo/

• Sandy Black

Eco-Chic the Fashion Paradox
Knitwear in Fashion

Fashioning Fabric, Contemporary Textiles in Fashion