Metamorphosis - Idea Development and Final Outcome

In our third taught day of this project we gathered together our research to create concept boards and then discussed and shared our initial ideas as a group.  

Concept Board

I decided to try and make two costumes for contrast. Instead of the conventional way of designing outfits for characters that they would actually wear in a traditional adaptation of the novella, I wanted to make costumes that were more a comment or embodiment of the nature of the characters. Before designing I started thinking about fabric and realised for cost and practicality purposes it made most sense for me to use fabric provided by the college: white polyester and calico. The simplicity and low quality of these fabrics don't matter to me as my ideas are more about techniques and surface design than the drape and textures of fabrics.

The characters I picked to design for are the two protagonists, Gregor and his sister Greta. I decided to create costumes that showed how, despite Gregor being a repulsive insect on the outside and Greta being a beautiful young woman, their inner natures are opposites, with Greta the more repulsive of the two. Inspired by the Jan Svankmajer exhibition, I thought the best way to do this was through anatomical surface design. I also wanted to convey how the real transformation of the story happens to Greta, who from her initially sweet and human nature into something more twisted. Inspired by the life drawing we had done, I planned to do his through layering of images. 

I kept the cut to a simple tunic-shaped dress so as to be able to concentrate my time on design rather than complicated construction. I used fabric paints on the calico to create a deformed skeleton with insect legs protruding from it, illustrating Greta's cruel and twisted inner nature. I then sewed the pattern behind this design of a normal human skeleton in grey thread, as a shadow of who she used to be to show the transformation she undergoes. 

Heat Transfer Printer

For Gregor's costume I painted the calico with black ink, which also had the effect of stiffening the fabric, making it more like insect armour. I decided to make a kind of cloak out of this fabric with a hood completely obscuring the face, to show how hidden and trapped within his outside appearance Gregor is. Also, to illustrate how inside he still experiences human emotion, I decided to print an anatomical heart on the inside lapel of the cloak. I drew the design for this and then scanned it into use the heat transfer printer and press to render the design onto fabric.

Final Outcomes:

     

I am pleased with my final outcomes, and feedback from my peers shows that the ideas I was trying to convey were evident. The main theme on which I worked was the conflict between appearance and personality, and the concealing and revealing of this. I added final touches to my designs to emphasise this. I cut the shape of a human spine into Gregor's costume, to show again his inner human nature but also his vulnerability: he is at the mercy of his family despite his gruesome appearance. I also added a chiffon overlay to Greta's costume, indicative of the fact that though she is beautiful and feminine on the outside, it is a thin façade. If I had more time I would have liked to create higher quality costumes with better tailoring. However, as I only had a week I am happy with my results and that I got to try costume design for the first time on the course. 

Footnote: Greta plays the violin in a key scene of the novella, hence the prop.

Metamorphosis - Life Drawing

On the second day of our two-week collaboration project based on 'The Metamorphosis', we continued our research through life drawing. These are a selection of the stages we went through during the day. Starting out with traditional observational drawings I used pencils:

And then progressed to looking in more detail at shadow lines and body contours using charcoal: 

After the morning we got more experimental, thinking about the ideas of the novella. We started layering poses to show physical transformation, sometimes drawing them all on one sheet, sometime building on using tracing paper:  

Oil Pastel on Tracing Paper

Oil Pastel, Charcoal, Pen, Pencil

Pen and Pencil

We then progressed from this by projecting images onto the model, often of insects to show the relationship between human nature and the insect form that is in the book:

Charcoal

Pen and Pencil layered Tracing Paper

Pencil

I always enjoy life drawing and think this day was helpful to our research as it gave me ideas about how to depict transformation and the inner nature of things. I am generally pleased with my drawings though looking back feel it would have been more interesting if I had experimented with colours as well within different media.

Collaboration Project: Metamorphosis - Research

Following the Industry Project, we were offered various projects in collaboration with the other foundation pathways: Graphics, Lens-Based Media and 3D Design. The project I chose is inspired by 'The Metamorphosis' by Kafka and its themes. I chose this project because my main interest within the Fashion and Textiles pathway is costume design, and I was interested in translating the themes and characters of the story into this.

Metamorphosis:

'The Metamorphosis' is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in German in 1915. The story begins with a travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into a large, monstrous, insect-like creature. The cause of Samsa's transformation is never revealed. The story deals with the aftermath of this occurrence and the reactions of Gregor's parents and sister, who are repulsed by the creature he has become. Themes I took from this are ideas of the hidden inner nature of people as, despite his repulsive appearance, Gregor maintains very human emotions throughout. The ideas of transformation (as the title of the book suggests) are also prevalent, though it is argued that the change the title refers to may not be Gregor's, as the story begins after his transformation. It is instead hypothesised that the 'metamorphosis' affects his sister Greta, who begins the story sympathetic and kind but becomes angry and resentful towards her brother. Eventually fatally injuring him, she behaves cruelly despite her outward beauty.

Brighton: 

Jan Svankmajer

As part of our research we spent a day in Brighton, visiting an exhibition and taking observational photos and drawings . 

The exhibition we visited was 'The Inner Life of Objects' by Jan Svankmajer, a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labelled surrealist known for his animations.

This exhibition featured a variety of work; however the area that mainly interested me was the displays of animal skeletons fused with other objects to create surreal creatures. A lot of the work showed artefacts or animals being given new dimensions, revealing different and twisted natures. There was something mythological about the things he sculpted, animated and drew which I feel fits well with the unexplained magical elements of Gregor's transformation.

My Observational Drawings of The Exhibition

After The exhibition we wandered around Brighton taking observational photos to add our research:

All together the day in Brighton was very interesting and Jan Svankmajer's work fitted well with the themes I had already picked out from the novella, such as that of inner nature being incongruous with outside appearance. It was useful for my research and has inspired some ideas about how to interpret 'The Metamorphosis' in costume.

In Industry Project

Following our introductory lessons, the design and media foundation students who had opted for the fashion and textiles pathway were merged into a new class with the fashion foundation students. Our first project was to be a group one (probably for bonding purposes). For this project we were assigned a designer and a group and told to create a campaign and concept for a collection, with each of us undertaking different roles as they would be carried out in the industry. There were six of us in my group (smaller than most of the others) with peers that I had never met before. Within the group I was in charge of menswear design for the range, there was also a womenswear designer, a print designer, an accessory designer, and two promoters (whose job it was to create campaign posters/films, design the catwalk etc). The designer we were assigned (for whom we would hypothetically be creating a campaign, and so would mimick the style of) was J.W. Anderson.

J.W. Anderson:

J.W. Anderson graduated in menswear at the London College of Fashion in 2005. His label was launched in 2008. Anderson in acclaimed for exploring the relationship between genders and blurs the lines with an androgynous style in all of his collections. He won the Emerging Talent Award for British Fashion in 2012.

After being assigned our designer and various roles we were given a quotation, which we could interpret ourselves and use as a premise and theme for our collection.

 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his fellow men.' -The Communist Manifesto

As a group we discussed this, and decided to focus on the last section, about the real conditions of life and man's relationship with his fellow men. This made us think of conflict and war, and we discussed this further, thinking how it could fit well with J.W. Anderson's usual styles since gender roles are challenged in wartime. When women contributed to the World War efforts it was perhaps the first time typical patriarchal systems were changed significantly, and this blurring of gender roles was something we thought we could translate well in a wartime theme within J.W. Anderson's label. After agreeing on this overarching theme as a group we designed a logo for the collection and put together a mood board with a colour scheme.

LOGO

Group Mood Board

Then we discussed what we planned to do individually, as although we would be presenting the work as a team and would be assessed based on how cohesive our work was, we each needed our own outcomes and work for grading and our blogs. Therefore, once we had done our initial planning we broke off to work individually within our roles. I had expressed a preference to be the menswear designer for our group as menswear design is something I had never done before, and so I wanted to challenge myself and explore new ideas. I also like the androgynous style of J.W Anderson's menswear collections so thought it a good place to start. Therefore, as I gathered my own images for reference, I looked at J.W. Anderson's previous collections and military inspired fashion from both men and women for inspiration. 

With the concept and initial ideas in mind, I started doing quick, rough designs in my sketchbook, doing ten or so jackets, ten trousers, ten shirts etc. From these I developed and picked out several outfits, trying different combinations for looks, eventually coming up with ten design ideas (see below):

Rough Designs and Fabric Swatches

Ten Design Ideas

Final Design 1

Final Design 2

Final Design 3

Final Design 4

Final Design 5

Final Designs: 
After finishing my ten design ideas I presented them to the group and they picked out their five favourites for me to colour. We did the same with the womenswear designer's ideas so for the final presentations we had a collection of ten looks that could work together in a campaign. With my final designs picked out for me, I added colour, keeping to the scheme we had decided on at the beginning of the project. Another idea we had, to bring together the collection, was to add a little bit of red into the palette of conventional military khakis and dark greys, with one piece being entirely red. We felt this was appropriate for the theme. Therefore, in some of my designs, such as designs one or four, there are only very subtle hints of red: the lining of a pocket etc. I am reasonably happy with my final collection, however feel I could have explored and developed the concepts of the theme more.



The group also asked me to model for campaign posters and a video for the promotion side of the campaign. As we couldn't model the clothes we were designing, the concept was more about capturing the mood and theme of the work. We looked back at the quotation for reference, and thought again about the idea of man's 'relations with his fellow men'. We decided that although we would have undercurrents of the war theme, the collection was just as much about human interaction and relationships on other levels, which we could show by having more than one model for promotion.

Promotional Posters

Promotional Poster/Advertising Campaign

Overall, I found this project quite difficult as I felt working with people I had never met before added pressure. Worrying that your work was up to everyone's standard added stress and made it difficult for me to design freely. Also, trying to change your work to make it compatible and cohesive with others was challenging. Therefore, although I enjoyed trying menswear design for the first time, working in groups meant I had less creative freedom to experiment with my own style. As a group the project worked out fine and the final presentation went well, yet personally I felt I hadn't explored the project and possibilities in enough detail before putting together my final designs. I recognise the importance learning how to collaborate on projects for industry and practical reasons however, I think I work better individually. 

Introductory Weeks: Design and Sketchbook Development Workshops

Design Development:

For the final couple of days of our introductory weeks in the fashion and textiles pathway we were given workshops on the basics of design and sketchbook development. For design, we were told to draw several random shapes and then pick one as a starting point for a clothing range. Then, using this shape, we drew a series of rough designs, with five minutes to focus on each item of clothing or detail. The shape I chose was a curved zig-zag, rather like a heart monitor line. With this as a basis, I drew several rough designs for shirts, coats, dresses, skirts, and sleeve, collar and pocket details:

Although I found this method of design challenging at first, as I am usually a perfectionist with my work, after a bit I loosened up and now feel it was a useful exercise to help my design methods. Once we had finished these rough design sheets we picked out one design from each category. This was then developed into five more-detailed design ideas, with front and back views. I drew these working in pen on loose design sheets:

Coats

Dresses

Skirts

Shirts

All the way through you can see the the simple influence of the original shape, bringing the designs together so that they could clearly be a collection. From these more detailed design boards we were then able to pick out garments and put them together into outfits. These we worked into our sketchbooks, adding colour:

This was a short introduction to the most basic form of design and so the day of work was quite episodic and practical. I recognise the applicable skills learnt in this workshop are useful; however, I do not particularly like my final five outfits as I normally prefer to work from more diverse and in-depth inspiration.

My Necklace

Sketchbook Development:

Similarly, in our sketchbook development workshop we used a simple starting point to illustrate the basic ideas. Using a personal object (in my case my necklace) we photographed, photocopied and drew it in various ways, to show the importance of mixed media and different perspectives in our work. Below is the sketchbook page in which I drew my necklace using pastels, pen, pencils, graphite and collage:

Once we had done his we were told to produce several development designs in our books, thinking about turning our interpretations of the object into products, and placing them on the body: 

I used collage for this part of the development, generally keeping my pages quite simple so there wasn't too much to focus on. I enjoyed this day of our introductory lessons especially since I am often quite nervous in the presentation of my work and so being taught and told the requirements for layout and development of ideas in our sketchbooks was helpful.