Exhibition Visit - Chanel to Westwood

I recently visited the exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles museum “Chanel to Westwood.” It is an exploration of the knitwear clacked up by some of the biggest names in fashion.” The space demonstrates how shapes, styles  and pattern in knitwear changed over the decades, from Coco Chanel’s neat twin sets – which introduced jersey to the world of couture – to the vibrant, multicoloured knits that came out of the ‘make do and mend’ movement in the ’40s. Whether machine-produced for the general market or hand-knitted during wartime rationing, the garments on display give a sense of the emotional investment that went into their creation. That is something almost unique to knitwear, in my opinion.

Dennis Nothdruft, the museum’s curator, believes the “basic functionality of knitwear” loses out against the glamour of couture. But with knitwear, especially if knitted yourself, every step and stitch in construction is known, seen and touched – the very same characteristics of haute couture, which makes it even harder to understand why knitwear suffers by comparison.

Before visiting this exhibition my understanding and passion for knitting was present. My mum had previously studied knitwear design at central saint martins and had produced some amazing samples. Over the years as she saw me follow a similar pathway as her, we began to look at them together and she taught me some basic skills. I decided that my project could become a lot more personal due to this aspect, and could be explored in detail.

Although everything on display was amazing in its own right, something that really grabbed my attention for a potential narrative idea was the traditional knits. In comparison to the other garments they aren't instantly amazing, but they represent cultural identity and tradition. The Fair Isle is a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. It is named after Fair Isle, a tiny island in the north of Scotland, that forms part of the Shetland islands. Fair Isle knitting gained a considerable popularity when the Prince of Wales (later to become Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle tank tops in public in 1921. Traditional Fair Isle patterns have a limited palette of five or so colours, use only two colours per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular colour.

Prompt 3 - Workshop & Exhibitions

Prompt 3: 

As a group, identify a series of materials/objects that you associate with your designer.

Using the processes explored in the Week 3 lecture & workshop, use these materials/objects to create a series of images which represent your assigned designer's aesthetic.

Experiment with non photographic processes and methods in your constructions, such as collage, drawing, painting, screen printing etc.

I visited the Tate Modern a few weeks before we were set the 3rd prompt which was to use chosen materials/objects to create a series of images which would represent our designers aesthetic. I visited the retrospective exhibition displaying the works of Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Malevich was the founder of geometric abstract art and the originator of the avant-garde, Suprematist movement. 

His early experiments as a painter led him towards the invention of supermatism a bold visual language of abstract geometric shapes and stark colours, epitomised by the Black Square. One of the defining works of Modernism, the painting was revealed to the world after months of secrecy and was hidden again for almost half a century after its creator?s death. Visiting this exhibition really helped me to think out side the "photography-box" and consider representing our designer through collage and different mediums. Iin the workshop I feel like I didn't illustrate Paula Gebase's work, but what it did help me do is work freely with different materials. I later came home and  reflected on my visit to the Tate modern, it helped me to create images that depicted geometry and simplicity through collage. These two aspects are highlighted in my designers work, as well as tactility, and to exploit this concept i decided to simplify previous images used for the project and replace the simplified line drawing with mixed media. I used a verity of different materials such as paint, print, pencil, pen, corrugated card, fabric etc? I feel that utilising and exhausting previous experiments is useful to create new ideas, I ended up rather happy with my personal final outcomes for this prompt

(Authors Own - First Attempt at Representing 1205s Aesthetic Through Collage)

(Authors Own Edited Response Representing 1205s Aesthetic Through Collage)

(GROUPS FINAL IMAGES, Highlighted Red - Authors Own)

After visiting a number of exhibitions together we got a feel for the type of images is we wanted to make. It was the general idea to stay away from photography seeing as we has already explored that area competently. As some people in the group were more able than others to create physical imagery rather than technology-based imagery, it was a real learning curve to some of us. We think it really helped our group as a whole because we all had completely different ideas of what to create, where to start and what to base it on. Some people, admittedly had no experience in this field what so ever so found it difficult, but as a group we all helped out to ensure that everyone had a say in the final images.