Inspiration: Shaping Fashion Balenciaga

I don't know much about high-end but if you've ever met me it's clear I do like fashion, and i guess I move to my own rhythm on it? That's not to say neither high end fashion nor trends don't hold inherent interest and value, it's just a matter of personal taste.

Particularly, I'd never find myself wearing Balenciaga but I'm really interested in it as art: it has such beautiful form and shape and I picked up some applicable wisdom while I was there (that an outfit should consider form, and the best types for flattery were mixing baggy/shaped and form-fitting in one outfit). He (and designers inspired by him, which arguably pushed the limits of fashion further than he did in his more conservative and less technologically advanced time) isn't afraid to use bold shapes and I found myself finding them interesting from a cartoon standpoint- I love children's animation with a diversity of body shapes, that pushes the understanding of the form of the human body (though I can take or leave the "mom figure" with the really wide hips because honestly it's tired?). I've been trying to simplify the way I use shapes and lines this summer, thinking about entire characters (or even just faces) as a square, or a triangle, and trying to stick to that:

Anyway, I wasn't expecting a revelation from the Balenciaga exhibition at the V&A at my nan's suggestion when she came to visit me in London but I really enjoyed it!

I thought it was great the drawings, which normally, I feel, rely on emphasis, actually translate almost perfectly into a finished garment. Like, truly a work realised? This dress, too, has no back seam and simply hangs off the front like a reverse-cardigan, and it works, which I think is great- I like seeing art that says "nah" to constrictions of the craft, almost, it seems, effortlessly.

The folds on this jacket were so sharp- they're held in place by a ribbon that runs down the inside of the sleeve.

Like, there's really skill to thinking about simple shapes, designing an outfit that fits the form so well with sad shapes, AND executing it so perfectly in 3D such that every angle is beautiful.

I liked what this dress did too- there was no corset involved in what was (or looked like) a very tiny waist, simply properly shaping the skirt and shoulders made it look that way. (At this point I ran out for space for photos on my phone, but you can see something similar in the leftmost dress below).

The right isn't a Balenciaga but someone inspired by him, further pushing how form can sit on a body, while also going beyond fabric (that said, Balenciaga was pretty experimental with material- the exhibition had X-rays of the dresses that showed the inner wires and other such contraptions that gave the dresses their shape) and creating something really amazing. There were other such dresses like this:

For example, the left one was leather which made for a very dramatic dress regardless of the oversized hood and wide angles, and the right was a white and green dress with a what looked like a delicated pleated fabric formed over wire circles. These are, like the others, mildly stylised since honestly I'm done doing overly-detailed realism to impress people, I get a lot more out of stylising from life, but there is little emphasis- these really were the shapes of these dresses, and damn, were they beautiful.

I did some more fashion iillustrations from photos I liked over the summer after this:

They have a bunch of flaws and still really lack movement and dynamism which is what really irks me about my art, more than the change in personal style, and some of the shapes I'm trying to use forego basic anatomy, but I dunno, I'm trying?

Project: Sell Yourself / Cell Urself

This project was a follow on from the "Macro Micro Diary" task, and therefore much of it is based on aspects of that.

There's no sketchbook work for this, unless you count the contents of the diary itself, given I started these whilst doing the diary.

I wanted to do patterns because I enjoy them and I know they're a strong point in my personal work, but I never really can think of many themes.

For example, I did a Stormzy pattern based on the tiny Twitter emoji that shows up for #GSAP (his album), and the little Stormzy head I mindlessly doodled on the cup in the comic about the album. This is nice, but I think highlights one of the problems with this brief- this didn't sell well because there's very little crossover between people who like grime and people who like cutesy stuff. My actual personality and my work don't neccesarily mix?

It also seemed obvious to do some Danny Phantom patterns since a few of the comics and a lot of my personal work at the time (which is included in the project, since it's a diary thing) was related to it. I originally pastisched the art style, before realising that because it was a project relating to me as an artist rather than my love for the art style and ability to pastische, therefore redoing it in my own style and pastels.

I also did two more patterns I didn't use, not because they were bad but I didn't see them selling hugely well.

SOFT BOI is probably my favourite pattern, even though it's quite basic compared to the others. I think it has the most sense of fun and the strongest aesthetic, as well as obviously being an original idea as opposed to simply a pattern based off something I liked.

I also worked on a pattern I wanted for personal branding but which fit into this project nicely.

I'm well-versed in designing for my own personal branding and the business cards I did were relatively simple but I'm pleased with the design. I shall point out my evident fluency in being able to "sell myself" from this.

I turned these patterns into badges, mostly out of ease. I really wanted to make notebooks with them as that's both originally what I designed them for and what I thought they'd sell best on, as well as some of the patterns being too detailed to properly appreciate on a badge. Unfortunately, I barely had money for printing on the uni printers at the time, let alone a run of notebooks. However, I have a badge maker, they're pretty cheap to make and because of their low price and my style of design tending to appeal to younger audiences, as well as their functionality, they also sell pretty well as a general rule.

I also obviously designed a nice table, and brought a minimal amount of other stuff I made of my own accord to sell with it. I would have had prints up too but Roberto told my my display looked too cut off from the rest of the group (because I mean, I love and enjoy uni and I totally want to be associated with the group?? what) and for some reason I listened to him and took it down.

ALSO since I apparently don't evidence it enough, here's what my table set-up looks like for the 20+ events I do every year, as my literal, actual job!

Here's a nice picture from the Metro from Hyperjapan Summer 2016.

 

And here are some more recent events (February and May 2017 respectively).

The fair went actually went better than expected- I wasn't keen on the venue at all (it was in a police station that had been converted into an art centre) and my class can be easily split by people who don't care and people who care so much they won't listen to other ideas, but people worked surprisingly well together!

Also these are all Insta stories because my phone had no space on it no matter how much stuff I seemed to delete ahah.

The work of the other students was really diverse. The actual event was really cool and inspiring in this sense but I think after I got home, afte taking payments on behalf of other people, thinking about how intensely I was struggling with money (and always am) and how much work I put into this compared to other students, I guess it was pretty depressing. I feel like art comes so naturally to other people and no matter how hard I try, I will always be a step behind them, no matter how good my business plan. I guess part of that does come into my inability to experiement, and I guess I resent that; not having the time or money to try new things and grow as an artist.

I somewhat regret not taking a bigger role in organising because it'll probably negatively affect my grade, but after it became apparent the police station was going to be the venue, I kinda didn't want my name associated with it. That said, I helped out extensively with cleaning the venue (it was Nasty) and worked the till with a girl for the duration of the event (8hrs or so) so I did more than the average and had as much as a say as I wanted to on the layout and working (for example, stipulating that having one or two people working the till was more reliable and safer).

It was a nice and surprisingly lucrative event though, we definitely collectively impressed our tutor and made £1829.50 as a class!