Fashion Beauty Ideals

Design Exploration Assignment 2

Fashion demands a constant updating of ideas and styles. Innovation or newness therefore can be a desirable commodity and can be created in a variety of ways including the use of: new fabrics, new manufacturing technologies, new design technologies, new design ideas or concepts and new information from consumer research. As students studying fashion design and technology, can you generate creative ideas to drive innovation and create a better world for the future?

In an age where more pressure than ever is being placed on men and women to conform to the ideal fashion stereotype, you are asked to consider how to break through the established idea of beauty. How we perceive our bodies has a massive impact on our confidence and self-esteem. The way we dress and adorn our bodies can also greatly influence how positively or negatively we feel about ourselves. Clothing can also be used to change, enhance or flatter our bodies and express the personality of an individual. How can you use advances in design, fashion product development and technical innovation to create garments that make your consumers feel good.

 

 

 

My recent design project has been to investigate society's ideal beauty; what society consider to be beautiful and regards as 'ugly'. Instead of going down the popular route of looking at petite faces, big lips and long lean bodies; I have been looking into society considering nudity and sexual content as beauty. Yes, nudity is natural and sex is an everyday thing but why do those subjects need to be seen in every magazine cover, billboard advertisement or on the streets. I want to investigate into fashion and how its slowly turning into pornography. Can fashion still be sexy and suggestive with some flavour, without showing such intimate parts of the body?

Fashion or Pornography

Beautiful Object

Assignment Task:

• Select one object that you consider to be beautiful. Through visual analysis of colour, shape and form consider the essence of its beauty, how can this inform the aesthetic of your range?

 

I chose mushrooms as my beautiful object, photographing the appearance and trying to communicate what I personally like about them. Photographing oyster mushrooms, showing off smooth round skin and the delicate feather like gills. It gave me some inspiration to explore the tones and textures through paint and handcrafted paper.

 

Sampling and Developing Ideas

Innovative Technology Group Presentation

The group presentation, was a collection of our research as a group, but also our individual design development, showing out individual ideas of exploring the new technologies.

Modelling On The Stand

I personally find modelling on the stand helps me explore my ideas, and in this case it helped me development my design ideas from my beautiful object, a mushroom. I experimented with my modelling ideas, using cad to recreate the shapes and manipulate on a figure template. I developed these ideas, merging my modelling into areas of different garments.

Gerber Workbook

For the front bodice block, rotate the shoulder dart under the sleeve

Adjust the neckline by modifying the point and using the move smooth horizontal tool to lower the neck line by 12cm.

To avoiding the neckline from gaping where it has been lowered, a small dart needs to be inserted and wedged out. Therefore, a 1cm dart was added into the neck line, then pivoted into the closest dart at the hem using the combine different line tool.  

Then the darts can be folded and closed and saved, returning the piece to the menu.

 

Then open the back bodice, fold and close the darts, save, returning the piece to the menu.

Measure the front dart width by using the distance 2 point measure/straight tool. Keep note of this measurement. Then draw a hip line using the digitize line tool.

 

Now pivot the waist dart into the hem of the skirt, using the hip line under the dart apex as a pivot point.

 

Delete the hip line and to remove the dart shape, use the delete point tool. Then merge the hem of the skirt, using the combine/merge tool. Save piece and return to menu.

 

Draw hip line onto skirt back block using digitize line tool. Then pivot a percentage of the back dart into the hem, using the distribute rotate tool, the amount is the measurement of the front dart width. Then finish off by deleting the hip line and the dart point, and then combine/merge tool to connect the hem lines.

Check the waist line of the skirt, front and back block are the same length using the measure tool and save the pieces.

 

Add notches to the skirt, 20cm down from the waist to help match up in production. Finish off with seamlines.

 

Finish off pattern pieces with a seam allowance of 1cm, using the add/define seam tool.