Friday, 22 February 2013

Lecture Fashion Meets Art

Tues 19th Feb 2013 Lecture Fashion Meets Art

Jean Wainwright LT1 10:00-12:00
Artists discussed included:

Corinne Day http://www.corinneday.co.uk/

Andy Warhol  http://www.warhol.org/

David McCabe  http://davidmccabephotography.com/

Guido Mocafico -'Make up for Citizen K 2000' and his work 'Roses' 2009 (Renoir inspired)  http://www.guidomocafico.com/

Bettina Rheims- Madonna New York 19994- and her Book of Olga  http://www.bettinarheims.com/

Juergen Teller Go sees 1999  http://juergenteller.tumblr.com/

Mario Testino- Madonnna March 2008-Vanity Fair  http://www.mariotestino.com/

Annie Lebovitz

Elaine Constantine http://www.elaineconstantine.co.uk/
Annie Lebovitz

Elaine Constantine http://www.elaineconstantine.co.uk/

Camille Vivier (film influenced)  http://camillevivier.tumblr.com/

Martin Parr http://www.martinparr.com/

Nick Knight  http://nickknight.com/

Graig Mcdean was quoted, as was:

Glen Lochford  http://www.glenluchford.com/

Terry Richardson  http://www.terryrichardson.com/

Mocafilco (images of guns)  http://www.mocafico.com/ 


Sunday, 17 February 2013

idea / clothes from a significant day and leaving the viewers to wonder who the owner is

Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher
Learning to love you more is a website by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher which asks the public to contribute to assignments that they post on there site. Assignment #55 was to photograph a significant outfit this could be from an important or significant day in your life. The idea was to lay your outfit on the floor including all the accessory's you were wearing. This assignment makes your clothes have an importance which is normally overlooked.
What I was wearing the night he and I ended up dancing in the street at 6 AM"
This is what I was wearing when I gave it all away and I didn't even care."
Hans Peter Feldmann
'All clothes of women' in a series of pictures by Hans Peter Feldmann. The series includes small black and white photos of 71 different pieces of clothes. The owner of the clothing is present through the items which leaves the viewers to wonder who the owner is. This series has an intimate feel because of the way the photographer has taken the trouble of photographing which makes you feel a connection with it. In this series Feldmann has captured everyday life by looking into items that are normally overlooked and don't seem of importance to some people. By taking images of other peoples clothes makes you wonder why he has chosen to photograph that certain piece and why it is of importance.

idea / clothing that was left behind by victims

Ishiuchi MiyakoThis series of work contains forty eight photographs of clothing that was left behind by victims of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima that happened in 1945. The images are very personal as it captures everyday items that once belonged to someone. They also have a very intimate feel because of how the photographer captures items that once belonged to someone and continue to exist in the present. I found this series of work to be very inspiring with how he captures the importance of clothing and how they are very powerful in telling someone about a person








idea/ clothing made into sculptural peices

Riitta Päiväläinen
Riitta Paivalainen creates images of second hand clothing that has been made into sculptural pieces. She collects the clothing from flea markets and chartity shops, the images have a presence of humanity in them even though there is no models. When talking about the series the photographer said :

'Several years ago, an old black dress made of velvet caught my attention in a second-hand shop. I examined the garment carefully. There was no label. The style of the dress was from the twenties. The seams revealed the dress was handmade. The owner of the shop told me that she had bought it in Paris. I tried the dress on and it fitted me perfectly. I became intrigued by the history of the dress. Who was the woman who had had the dress made? What was her life story?'
I like the idea of using second hand clothing in my own work as each piece has a story behind it which is an advantage compared to store bought clothes. The clothing in the images symbolise the past and the stories of the unknown people who wore the clothing. By capturing the clothing in a natural environment captures the relationship between the fashion industry and nature, this emphasises the effect clothing waste can have on the environment.
 
 
 

idea / the exploration of locations through performance in relation to the camera

Melissa Moore 'Know the edge' is a series of self-portraits made by photographer Melissa Moore in 2004. I was inspired by her work as she uses clothing that is recycled as she uses the clothes of people who have inhabited the spaces. Her images have a very playful feel with the way she positions her self on top of furniture and with the decorations of the rooms. Her work is centred on the exploration of locations through performance in relation to the camera. In every image the whole of her figure is never revealed due to the crop used and with how the clothes conceal her identity. The way her images are staged capture the relationship between body and architecture.




ideas / creating a different person

Danny Treacy 'Them' is a photographic series by Danny Treacy. He creates eerie suits out of abandoned clothing which he wears to become 'Them'. The styling of the clothing makes Treacy look as if he is an urban warrior or an mythical beast as he is faceless which adds an element of fear.
The dark background looks very threatening and and makes the model look very vulnerable as he is in the centre of it. The subject looks as if he is appearing out of the darkness and coming towards you because of how he is brightly lit in comparison to the background. By using clothing that has been abandoned or recovered adds a eerie feel to the image as Treacy wears the clothing that was once a strangers and becomes 'them'. The idea of using clothes that belonged to someone else really inspired me as it allows you to use your imagination on who they could have belonged to. I also like the intimate feeling the clothing creates in the image as the figures look familiar just because of the clothing they are wearing.







idea / layering within and remembering past

Siru Kivisto
Photographer Siru Kivisto's series called 'Layered Within' looks into fashion and mass consumption. Her images are inspired by Renaissance portraiture and express the relationship between an item of clothing that is no longer a treasured object. She represents this in her work by having the model wear many layers of clothing which adds an awkward feel to her images. Her image plays with contradictions of fashion such as ugliness and beauty, new and old, natural and artificial. I found her work to be really inspiring with how she represents mass consumption by layering the model in lots of clothes which adds a different view to the clothing.
 

Jeanette Montgomery Barron.
'My mothers clothes' is a series by photographer Jeanette Montgomery Barron. She started taking pictures of her mothers clothes and accessories when her mum became ill with Alzheimer's to help her remember her past. When talking about the project Barron said:


This project started because my mother had to move from a big house in Virginia where she lived. She had started becoming difficult to manage and she would leave the water running and flood the house or she would get in the car, drive and get lost. So we had to move her, but at home she had this huge closet of clothes and, almost as a part of a daily ritual, she would go in everyday and do a sort of inventory. I didn’t know what she was going to do with all that, so I thought about doing a sort of catalogue or an album of her closet, taking shots of her clothes and putting them all in a scrapbook for her. I live and work in Rome, but I’m often back and forth between the States and Italy, so I put a bunch of clothes in a suitcase, brought them back with me and started taking photographs.

Documenting the clothes in this way almost turns them in to a portrait themselves as they start to represent her mother even after she has gone.





idea / useing archive

idea / useing archiveI became interested in the idea of using second hand clothing in my work, as recycling fashion is a important part in helping to stop the mass consumption of clothing from shops that cause all of the waste. I decided to look into photographers that have used second hand clothing in there work. I also looked into photographers that archive pieces of clothing. The idea of archiving fashion really appealed to me as it archives the importance of clothing and the role they play in our everyday life. By just photographig the clothing and not the person who owns it leaves you to wonder what they would be like and why was they wearing that particular item.
Ida Taavitsainen
Ida Taavitsainen is an Alumni student at the University for the creative arts. 'The memory of my wardrobe' is a project she made about the relationship between clothes and memory. She became interested in the stories behind her clothing as many of her clothes had belonged to someone else such as family members. She started by interviewing the person who owned the clothes before her to get to know the stories behind them. Taavitsainen became interested in the environmental aspect of the clothes and how they were made to last and how there is an issue with throw away fashion now. The first section of her project is called 'Story telling' and looks at the relationship between the background and the props with the clothing, it also includes text with the images to talk about the relationship and the history. In the second part, 'Absent Bodies' Taavitsainen makes the clothing look almost sculptural as she wants them to look alive and speak in the absence of the person.
 
 
 

idea / dealing with the ecology of our lives

Jill Danyelles ‘Fiftyx3’
Jill Danyelle works on creative projects that deal with the ecology of our lives. Her project fiftyRX3 is about style and sustainability and is a photo documentary of what what she wore every day for a year which fifty percent of it was reused or recycled garments. Danyelle's mantra is reuse, reduce, and recycle, when talking about why ethical fashion is important she says 'ethics is part of ecology and evolution, part of learning, growing and surviving individually and as a race'. In an interview with Victoria & Albert museum she discusses what you can do to make a difference with ethical fashion these include 'pull out things I haven't worn in awhile, reinvent a piece or wear it in a different way, focus more on quality over quantity, buy clothing made from sustainable materials and buy vintage and second hand'. Her interview inspried me to include second hand or vintage clothing in my images as well as reinventing a piece by wearing it in a different way.




idea / sustainable fashion

Sheena Matheiken- ‘The uniform project’
The Uniform project looks at sustainable fashion as one girl wore the same little black dress for a year. When speaking about the project Matheiken said "Think of it as wearing a daily uniform with enough creative license to make it look like I just crawled out of the Marquis de Sade's boudoir," She dressed up the black dress with accessories from second hand shops to highlight the power that recycling clothing can do. One of the aims of the project was too raise money for the Akanksha Foundation which is a campaign for schools for Indian children that are unable to get an education. Sheena say's "I was raised and schooled in India where uniforms were a mandate. Despite the imposed conformity, kids always found a way to bend the rules and flaunt a little personality. Boys rolled up their sleeves, wore over-sized swatches, and hiked up their pants to show off their high-tops. Girls obsessed over bangles, bindis and bad hairdos." This project proves how you can still look trendy by accessoring your outfits to make them look different so you don't have to keep buying clothing.




ideas...? mass consumption and how we are encouraged to by clothing or items that we don't need.

When I was looking into recycling clothing I came across some artists/designers who have recycled, reused and repaired there clothing to express there passion for recycling clothing.

‘The little brown dress’- Alex Martin
'The little brown dress' is a project by fashion blogger Alex Martin. For a year Martin wore same the brown dress every day from July 7th, 2005 to July 7th 2006. She made the dress herself designing it mostly on it practicalities so she can wear it in as many situations as possible throughout the year. When talking about the project she said:

I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense.

This project looks at mass consumption and how we are encouraged to by clothing or items that we don't need. In this project she proves that we don't need to constantly buy new clothes as by pairing one outfit with different items such as cardigans and accessories completely change the look and can update it. Throughout the year the brown dress went through some changes such as fading fabric and missing buttons by repairing the dress Martin could continue using it, she views the changes as additions to the dress's character similar to the changes she has undergone over the year.
 
 
 

fashion information

Slow fashionSlow fashion is in support of sustainable fashion and it's idea is to slow the rate of consumption. It's about approaching fashion in a different way in which consumers, designers and retailers are more aware of the impacts that clothing have on the workers, communities and ecosystems. Slow fashion is about changing the fashion industry to focus on quality instead of quantity to stop the mass producing of clothing. Some examples of slow fashion include: Choosing products that support small businesses such as locally made and fair-trade clothes, buying second hand or vintage clothing, making your own clothing by customising and mending, slowing the rate of fashion consumption by buying fewer clothes less often and choosing clothing made out of ethically made or recycled materials.

Recycling fashionRecycling fashion provides important environmental benefits. It consists of giving and buying clothing from second hand and vintage shops, restyling existing clothes, and choosing to invest in quality rather then quantity when buying clothes. By recycling fashion reduces the need for landfill space which stops the problems that textiles present as they do not decompose. Recyclign also results in less pollution and saves energy as materials or fibres do not have to be transported from abroad. More than one million tonnes of textiles is thrown away every year in the UK even though 50% of the textiles we throw away are recyclable.

UpcyclingUpcycling is when you convert waste materials into new products. In comparison to Recycling many people see Upcycling as being better for the environment as it requires less energy and resources as recycled items need to be collected and sorted. Upcycling fashion is when you use existing garments and combine them together to make new items of clothing. I like the idea of up cycling in fashion and want to represent it in my own work, by using second hand clothing in a new way to create new items. Upcycling is a greener way of recycling as items aren't going to landfill sites where gas is released which has a huge effect on climate change. It also saves you from buying new thing which reduces the amount of goods that need to be manufactured.

more designers...

Martin Maison Margiela
Fashion designer Martin Maison Margiela creates clothing made out of items many people would consider as waste. By creating beautiful clothing out of 'waste' makes you aware of how many uses it can have and at the moment most of it is being taken to the landfill and is not being recycled.

Mask Bolero by Maison Martin Margiela, made of latex hair masks..


Shades Of Denim by Maison Martin Margiela

Christopher Raeburn
Fashion Designer Christopher Raeburn uses unwanted materials to create futuristic clothing. Everything Raeburn uses is recycled which means his clothing is very ethical. He uses redeployed military fabrics as the material is functional and waterproof and because the military has so many warehouses full of the clothing as they have to overproduce there clothing. Raeburn says that giving the clothing 'a new lease of life is very interesting' I also find this idea very interesting.







fashion shows

Fashion Shows
I also researched fashion designers who have used 'waste' to create new clothing.
Junk to Funk

Fashion Shows

Junk to Funk is a project by a collection of artists that makes clothing out of items we see as 'waste'. The call there clothing 'Trashion' as it mixes fashion with trash. They're fashion shows make you think differently about waste and they address soiciety's mass consumption habits which makes you think about items you dispose of. By making the clothes visually striking raises awareness about the impact of consumption. The collection is very inspiring as it shows you what solutions could be done for a more sustainable fashion choice. When talking about waste they said:
Imagine a world in which there was no such thing as trash; that everything that we “threw away” was perceived as a valuable resource, used to create something new or as a nutrient for the earth. What if long-lasting and repairable purchases ruled over cheap prices, durable was more convenient than disposables, and we valued doing stuff instead of buying stuff? Consider that low-impact doesn’t mean sacrifice, but is a means to reclaim our time, money and pursuit of happiness. What if the ultimate measure of coolness was how little you bought, how much you shared and how much you creatively reused?
 
 
 
The Sustainable Fashion Show
On the opening day of London fashion week, there was the first every Sustainable fashion show. The fashion consisted of fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney showcasing work that used recycled materials and materials that was ethically fashion. Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, was there at the fashion show he had to say this about it, 'This fashion show proves that eco-fashion and sustainable-chic, which are often associated only with macrobiotic yogurt, hemp skirts and raffia work, can be funny, elegant and commercial'
 
 
 

Martin Margiela



Martin Margiela (born April 9, 1957 in Genk, Belgium) is a Belgian fashion designer.

Martin Margiela creates oversized proportion garments emphasizing long arms, and with linings, seams and hems on the outside. The concept of deconstruction, also embraced by the aforementioned Rei Kawakubo, is important for the understanding of Martin Margiela's fashion statement. Margiela famously redesigns by hand objects such as old wigs, canvases and silk scarves into couture garments.





turning traditional ladies garments, into something more subversive and architectural/sculptural

idea - turning traditional ladies garments, into something more subversive and architectural/sculptural

Post image for Square One: the miracle of space age

I love this architectural and monochromatic Autumn/Winter 2012 collection by Dutch fashion designer Hellen van Rees, brimming with the signature cubic projections woven into the Chanel tweed-like garments which are made of recycled yarn.



Designer’s words:

This collection was inspired by the tweed fabrics used by Chanel, the straight silhouette of 1920′s flapper girls and 3-dimensional artworks by Anish Kapoor and Rachel Whitebread. The textile is the binding factor of the collection. It’s completely handmade, from recycled yarns woven one by one directly in the shape of the garment. Not wasting anything and making the garment including the cubes totally seamless as it’s woven 3-dimensionally. The yarns and base textile are production factory remnants or old fabrics and scraps taken apart. So the collection is sustainable. The cubes added are all in the same textile making the garments, that are based on very traditional ladies garments, into something more subversive and architectural/sculptural. The blocks themselves are very light, so they don’t distort the garment. Also often they’re attached to a pleated skirt allowing them to swoosh in movement making a seemingly static silhouette suddenly dynamic.