Balinese offerings

During my summer I visited Bali, a place rich in cultural tradition and heritag. As part of their Hindu religion, outside every household or shop they leave handmade offerings of folded and stapled bamboo leaved filled with flowers, incense and things they feel grateful for that day for example, rice, cigarettes and chocolate. In addition to this, each building usually had a shrine decorated in colourful beaded fabrics and intricate folded bamboo and paper designs. Most lampposts were also decorated in corresponding colourful and detailed designs. Using only cheap and readily available materials they relied on intricate traditional hand made processes to create effective designs. I liked the sculptural and naive aesthetic of these design which would be interesting to translate into my own collages and textile pieces.

Bali also has a diverse textile industry, with one of their main techniques being batik, a process involving multiple layers of dye using wax resist to create pattern and lines. While in Bali I did a batik course which is a technique I would be interested in developing in my knit samples.

My stay coincided with a Hindu festival. During this time the Balinese people attend local ceremonies in traditional costume and take part in theatrical street processions wearing masks followed by a procession of children playing percussion instruments. I visited the Ubud mask museum and saw these masks up close and learnt the history behind them. There were also dolls on display sourced from around the eastern world, showing the wide range of traditional costumes each with their own distinctive style. The exaggerated features and proportions of the masks combined with the bold and garish colours created a strong dramatic effect. 

Summer project

Tate modern

I liked how a broad range of materials and textures had been juxtaposed and compressed together creating a modern, man-made imitation of sedimentary rock.

Anish Kapoor's piece in the Stanley Kubrick exhibition was a multi sensory experience designed to make the viewer feel intensely uneasy, mirroring the atmosphere of Kubrick's films. I liked how this piece of art affected your whole body through its use of sound and light, even affecting the viewer's emotion and state of mind. 

The first exhibition at the Copenhagen design museum was of Japanese prints and homeware which then led to Danish furniture and textiles, which allowed you to see how the influx of Japanese art in the 19th century influenced Danish design. I liked the effective simplicity and clean lines of of the Danish furniture. There was a broad range of textiles on display including; prints, contemporary fashion designs and 18th century embroideries, providing inspiration on colours, material and silhouette.

This piece was a long tapestry with inlaid bamboo and horse hair, which was an effective use of material on a large scale. 

Group work evaluation

I have enjoyed the collaboration aspect of the group work, in particular with Jessica Bachmann. We communicated and collaborated effectively together to combine our ideas and samples. I created knit and crochet samples for her to print on, and she sewed latex elements onto my crochet samples. The combination of our two different styles and techniques created some very interesting and unusual samples. It was hard to collaborate as effectively with other members of the group as they did not contribute any samples, and therefore this put a strain on the group as it was only Jessica and I producing any work, while Emma was in London. In retrospect, I feel we should have confronted them earlier and encouraged them to contribute more to the group. The knock on effect of this was that we were behind in our time schedule and did not leave enough time to combine our design ideas. This meant that our final line up was not concise or cohesive enough. 

Garment research

For my own individual fashion line up I decided to do a knitwear  collection upon Tom's feedback. I widened my research pool by looking at biker outfits who also incorporate the idea of protective padding. Studying knitwear collections from designers such as Sibling and Kenzo helped me to consider what my collection should include, ensuring there is a mix of show pieces and more wearable garments.

sibling knit

Standwork

Placing the samples in different ways on the mannequin on the body, gave me ideas for development in my samples and how they would work in a fashion context. It allowed me and Jessica to put our samples together and see how they could work together in synergy. I particularly like the interesting neckline images we photographed using the foiled denim layered over my knit.