"God you look AMAZING!" "WHAT! Are you Serious?"
Category: Apparel
Competitions: UK, International
This collection is Genderless for anyone who is anyone to wear. I’m creating something that will make people stop and stare. If the mainstream look and react with a frown I truly deserve a crown It is something new. Silicon, leather and metal too. A subculture like no other It will definitely make your stomach flutter Being queer and looking into fear is something I hold dear. and also will hopefully drive my career It will be outrageous, extravagant and RED! Don’t look too close or you might drop dead. My collection entitled “God you look Amazing!” “What! Are you serious?” is based around looking into Horror through a Queer lens. Initial Research was heavily inspired by my mum in the 90s, how she dressed Vs how she was perceived by the public. People would fear her as no one had seen someone dress the way she dressed where we lived and would clutch their bags scared of being mugged. This led me to investigate Queer clubs in the 80s/90s such as the Batcave and the Blitz club, both highly contrast each other. One being very goth and one being very glamorous. As the outfits to the club where ‘Outrageous’ and had never been seen before by Straight people they were labelled ‘Horrifying’ even though they weren’t; they were just something new and not seen before by the public. This element of the fear of the unknown really inspired my collection and the design processes / fabrication techniques I used. From inspiration in my concept I wanted to create new fabrications and textures that the public haven’t experienced before to interlink back to the original fear of the unknown and the new that would make my collection equally as outrageous and horrifying as the glamorous pieces where back in the 80s and 90s queer clubs. This included me looking into leather and silicon as unconventional fabrications to work with. The leather I embossed to create a textures risen above the surface that is not immediately obvious to eye and has a eerie effect to it. With the silicon work, the touch of the fabric is something that appeals not to everyone which adds more to my concept as not everything is to everyone's taste but that’s not always negative it might just be something new. I explored possible use of unconventional forms of using garments by being inspired surrealism and exploring in my second-hand research the Exquisite Corpse and using this into my sampling such as creating asymmetrical and extreme low waisted styled looks. This influenced my final collection outfits. Within outfit 1 I utilised the asymmetrical style in my twisted tailored jacket. This also incorporates large pointed sleeves in a unconventional way as the points are not on the shoulder but they jaggedy point out and due to the asymmetrical style one sleeve falls longer than the other. I applied the extreme low waist to my outfit 1 trousers which followed the same shape as the in the angled low waist as it does it the angles that point out on each side. For outfit 2 I formed my dress using a unconventional way of pattern cutting, I used two triangle patterns and formed the shape on the stand. I applied my trouser side panels as the side panels to the dress so I could conceal pockets within it. All my patterns follow deep angles and triangle styled patterns within them which is something that has become part of my brand. Drawing and reacting from my first hand research is not usually my strongest element of work, but for my FMP I wanted to push myself to utilise print within my work. From this final year of university I have pushed the mediums of creating that work for my such as collaging and doing line drawing from my collages and also large scale paintings. From this I was able to scan all of my different drawings, collages and paintings in of my mum, leigh bowery and different people in the queer clubs in the 80s and 90s and collage with them on illustrator. I enjoyed the freedom of collaging the work together which led me to do screen printing as I had more control over the product placement of each image and more charge over the pigmenting of the variety of shades of red used. Initially I was just using this for the lining of my twisted tailored jacket in outfit 1, on deadstock paul smith silk fabric, as it worked so well in outfit 1 I continued the design into outfit 2 for the dress where screen printed 2 and half meters of the silk in a collage format and cut all the triangular patterns out of it to distort the designs to further interlink with my concept.
