WEEK#5 & 6 Fashion Textiles - Compress & Expand

On our first couple of days doing fashion textiles, we mainly did a lot of drawing and photographing. Collecting objects that can be manipulated by compressing and expanding, such as cans, bottles, balloons and rubber bands, we made models and drew from them. We experimented using different drawing materials, using different weights of line with the use of graphite, ink, marker etc. The main importance of these drawing exercises was composition and how we choose to place our drawings on a sheet of paper. Scale, weight of line, angle and placement were encouraged to be considered in our drawings.


We then moved on to experimenting with manipulation of our photographs, using these words as a guide - cut, fold & slide, detach & reattach, displace & replace, deface. It was interesting to see what some creative ideas people have come up with by introducing foreign materials into their photographs, and the use of scratching, folding, cutting and sewing. My images were of a crushing Coke can - and I must admit, they were quite boring images and I should've looked for something more interesting to photograph. However, I managed to make them look more interesting by scratching off the COKE signs and replacing them with newspaper, cut sections off and hanging them using thread, sewing into and drawing onto them. It was quite an enjoyable experience as we were encouraged to use our creativity by exploring different possibilities to manipulate these photographs.
Instead of developing further with the images themselves, we focused more on the shape these manipulations produced. I folded my images in a way that they produced interesting folded patterns, and when combined in multiples created beautiful pleat-like designs. I photographed this and developed further using different weights of material and different types of paper such as acetate, brown paper and tracing paper. I also enlarged the scale and manipulated the design further as I developed.

What I enjoyed doing most in this project was creating 3D structural ideas using the scanned images of our manipulations, by cutting a line into it, sticking its four corners to the wall and manipulating them by twisting, turning and folding it in a variety of ways. The scanned images themselves on the model contributed to their structures as they created an extraordinary colour effect with its soft greys and browns.

This was what helped me think of a concept for my project, as these manipulations reminded me of organic forms and soft curves that modern architects have begun introducing to their structures, contrasting in the idea of manufacture and industry with its use of material and the idea of nature with organic forms. Architects such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright designed structures which 'grew from their environments'. They think that it is important for structures to link with their surroundings and for the interior to link with nature, such as FLW's "Falling Water", which was made using stone and concrete, yet corresponds so well with its natural surroundings, with its protruding and recessing forms and cantilevers hovering over the falling water in the river below.



I then looked for materials that would fit in with my concept - materials that could represent manufacture and industrialisation, and that is not conventional and common. Looking in hardware stores and Shepherd's Bush Market, I finally found a type of material that was made of soft plastic, in which its surface texture mimics that of metal and marble flooring. Using these materials, I reinvented their appearance by painting over them using white paint and then scratching marks into them, giving them an unrefined modernistic appearance. I then proceeded to create two structures that contain organic curved forms, held together by pushing nails into them.