Unpicked - The Designers

    Junky Styling

  Junky Styling, London, is a fashion house founded in 1997 that are most well known for their original tailored design and enthusiasm for recycling. ‘Wardrobe Surgery’ is a service provided by the brand that allows customers to bring their unwanted garments to the store and be a part of the recreation of that garment into something detail-rich and fresh. A consultation is required with the client, for Junky to recreate a garment into something new and desirable. The client usually has a reason for not throwing the original garment away or an idea as to how it should look; this aids the designers with creating a brand new look for the garment. For example, an old suit jacket could be turned into a dress or shirt; the possibilities are endless. The brand allows a lot of customer input, with public opinion very much shaping their collections and unique designs.

    Maison Martin Margiela

  Maison Martin Margiela is a French fashion designer whom famously redesigns objects such as a canvas or a scarf into couture garments, by hand. He is very much inspired by the concept of ‘deconstruction’ within his collections; with the lining, seams and hems showing on the outside of many garments. Margiela’s A/W 2008/09 collection consisted of recycled couture with garments formed from balloons, plastic bags and much more. Margeila’s latest collaboration with H&M unveiled a collection of Avant garde but reasonably priced pieces; bound to please the fashion conscious. This collection plays towards the androgynous look with tailoring cut loosely, suits adopting a masculine shape and drapes taking over shoulders and hips alike. Remaining true to his inspiration, deconstruction again takes the main credit for creating this collection. Gloves form handbags, belts form jackets and asymmetrical lines create two different garments in one. Margiela recently launched a new collection in collaboration with H&M and is available in selected H&M stores as well as online. The collection is awesome and really reflects the reconstruction technique talked about in the previous post. I'd recommend trying to bag a statement piece of his from H&M; it flew off the rails as soon as it was launched in stores and online so it will be a struggle but its well worth it!

   Gary Harvey

 Gary Harvey was the creative director at Levi Strauss whom began designing recycled garments during a freelance fashion campaign in which he took 42 pairs of Levi’s 501’s and created a dress with them. Since this discovery of a passion for recycling; Harvey produced his first collection of couture gowns made from iconic vintage garments such as, trench coat, baseball jackets and even copies of the Financial Times. His first collection of recycled couture was inspired by the silhouettes and practises used in vintage couture. The silhouettes replicate the simple femininity of vintage ball-gowns. The challenge to create a couture-inspired dress collection using recycled clothing has grown from a simple past-time to a serious message that recycled garments can be made into something beautiful. Gary’s first collection showcased nine of his stunning dresses during London Fashion Week. The collection together creates a dramatic display designed to change people’s perception of second-hand clothing and create fashion with a conscience.

Unpicked

                                               Deconstruction Reconstruction

  In this week's workshop I went forth to practice a technique called deconstruction reconstruction. This involves the deconstruction of a ready made garment and putting it back together into a new form. For this I used an extra large men's shirt bought from a charity shop and unpicked some seams; removing the arms, cuffs and collar. To reconstruct my shirt into a dress, I decided to fit my bodice to the stand, using one arm as a bodice panel, one shirt side as the other panel and gathered the cuffs as decoration. I pinned in exposed darts and gathered up the excess material to fit against the body and give a textured look to the bodice. To create my skirt, I removed my garment from the stand and began randomly pinning areas of fabric to the garment before reapplying it to the stand and seeing how it draped. Some areas I moved slightly for aesthetic pleasure and for better drape but most areas I kept as pinned. To finish the back of my dress i took round the remainder of the collar facing as a one shouldered strap and attached it to a pocket at the centre back of the skirt; allowing me to fasten the dress with ease. I played around with the draping of the garment for a while before settling on my final garment. This workshop will help me a lot when developing my designs and is something I will definitely consider using in my final garment.

The Shirt I Deconstructed

Collar Detail

Unpicked Seams

Removed and Deconstructed Arm Piece

First Bodice Panel Using Arm Piece

Cuffs Gathered 

Cuffs Added to Bodice Panel For Decorative Detail

2nd Shirt Panel Added and Excess Fabric Fitted

Back View

Front View

Gathered and Fitted Fabric Excess

Skirt Drapes

Improved Front View

Improved Back View

Draping Created Off Stand

Final Bodice 

Final Back View

Final Front View

Pleat Pleat Pleat - The Designers

    Roland Mouret

   Roland Mouret is a French fashion designer whom is most well-known for the creation of both the galaxy dress and the moon dress. Mouret’s signature style is one of geometric shapes and a unique understanding of the female silhouette with garments flattering and exaggerating a figure. Angular lines, folds and pleats create many of Mouret’s garments giving his collections an origami feel. It is said that he is most inspired by the practice of origami and the shapes created from a simple sheet of paper; Mouret recreates this method using fabric. With his Spring/Summer 13 collection consisting of boxy shoulders, split hems and layers of geometric shapes; Mouret showcases his unusual angular pieces in a very modern way.

    Paul Jackson

   Paul Jackson is an origami artist whom started his professional career in 1982. His works consists of original origami models created using free hand folding techniques and also fine art pieces created using origami methods. In his career, Jackson has commissioned for companies all over the world including advertising agencies and design groups. Preferring to cut, fold and stick paper in order to ‘fake’ the origami look; Jackson can create unique structures in almost any form and to any specification. Jackson was inspired by the desire to create artistic pieces of origami rather than just thought challenging forms; allowing the paper folding activity to become model making.

    Richard Sweeney

  Richard Sweeney is an origami artist whom discovered his talent at school whilst studying 3D design and sculpture. Sweeney’s methods combine his interests in design, structure, photography and craft with his passion for origami. He enjoys facing the challenge of manipulating a flat sheet of material into unusual forms; often of vast size. Sweeney’s pieces are mostly experimental works unless commissioned as this allows freedom of manipulation of materials and therefore discovery of more unusual shapes and forms.

   Mauricio Velasquez Posada

  Mauricio Velasquez Posada is a designer best known for his collection of sculptured dresses inspired by origami. The dresses reflect the practice of origami whilst complimenting the body and actually being wearable garments. Made predominantly from paper, the garments embody a sharp, violent frame, creating an illusion of a harmful substance, where in reality it’s harmless. Origami forms the basis of these pieces with intricate patterns, folds and cut-outs complimenting the female shape and embodying the ‘art for fashion’ side of design. 

Pleat Pleat Pleat

 This week, I was given an introduction to the art of pleating by Terry Weinart of Ciment Pleaters. Working with designers such as Zandra Rhodes and Alexander McQueen for more than 40 years; Ciment Pleaters has a vast backlog of clients and an even vaster portfolio of pleating techniques and patterns. I spent the workshop exploring the many samples of pleating patterns and fabrics created by the company. Each pleated piece of fabric is created by applying heat to the fabric whilst sandwiched between cardboard pleated patterns and works best on polyester fabrics. I created my own pleating pattern by accurately drawing a series of intersecting lines using my pattern master and then scoring these. I then folding along the lines to create a repetitive pattern of shapes. I then took a length of cotton-polyester blend fabric and used the patterns to pleat it. This technique is very time consuming but definitely worth the effort as it achieves a original, fitted look and can be applied to basic patterns quite easily. I was very inspired by this technique as I loved the intersecting lines and endless possibilities of different pleats.

Drawing My Pleated Pattern

Pleated pattern

Pleated Patterns

Examples of Ciment Pleaters' Patterns

Examples of Pleated Fabric

Terry Weinart Giving Tutorial On Pleating

TR Down Under

   My third week of studying Fashion Design continued on the method of Transformational Reconstruction (TR). Here, I learnt how to get a skirt I've created from the mannequin, onto pattern paper. This was a useful technique to acquire as often, designers find it easier to drape and experiment with fabric before making a pattern for the garment; this way unusual shapes and lines are achieved effortlessly and are unrestricted. The technique transforms a basic skirt black into an interesting skirt with intersecting style lines. These lines are achieved by applying a basic skirt pattern to a mannequin and adding style lines that go through important points such as hip point in order to achieve a flat pattern when later separated from the block.  This technique is invaluable as it will allow me to transform a plain and simple skirt block into something original and intriguing.

Basic Skirt Pattern

TR Skirt Pattern

Example of TR Skirt

Origami For Fashion - The Designers

 Here, I have collected some brief information on fashion designers that use creative cutting techniques such as TR; discussed in the 'Origami for Fashion' section of this blog. These designers are very different in their thought processes but each uses unusual cutting and construction methods that create wow-worthy garments.  

Shingo Sato 

 The father of TR; Shingo Sato, is a couture designer whom specializes in transformation reconstruction. Sato designs for private clients, teaching and giving workshops in different parts of the world such as USA, Japan, UK and Italy. He recently gave a TR masterclass in 2010 at Central Saint Martin’s School of the Arts, London and opened a TR Cutting School in Milan, Italy in 2011. . Transformational reconstruction is a more creative and original take on the traditional metric pattern cutting process and is often a technique that involves a lot of trial and error before you can arrive at the desired outcome. Sato works with paper patterns on the stand to create a 3D pattern of a garment to achieve creative style lines and eliminate the need for darts etc. A basic block pattern is adapted into a TR design on the stand and then becomes the base for further design development. This really is origami in fashion form, who knew fabric could be manipulated and moulded to the body like that?

Julian Roberts

 Julian Roberts is a fashion designer, lecturer for MA Mixed Media Textiles at The Royal College of Art, London, and creator of creative pattern cutting method. ‘Subtraction Cutting’. Roberts has shown 13 collections at London Fashion week and has a vast history of workshops and lectures given across the world. He gives demonstrations of his cutting technique in front of large audiences and purchasing a garment from him is not possible without a pattern cutting master class from the man himself.  Each garment Roberts makes is unique and made specifically for the client. SC involves designing with the pattern rather than creating the actual pattern itself primarily by 2D illustrations. The technique focuses on the pattern’s representation of the negative spaces within the garment that make it hollow. SC involves experimenting with hollow shapes that often flow from the designer’s thought process and become something new and fresh rather than emulating previous styles. Subtraction cutting takes the maths and measurements away from metric pattern cutting and replaces it with creativity, balance, body and movement. A bit of a confusing concept but who cares when you can have one of these amazing dresses AND a masterclass from the man himself?!

Iris Van Herpen

 Iris Van Herpen is a Haute Couture Designer whose works are based on creative pattern cutting, unusual materials and scientific matters. Her works focus on representing the soul and character of a woman whilst exaggerating the female silhouette. Van Herpen’s garments are more like works of art that not many people would find wearable due to the sheer weight of many of the garments and the uncomfortable materials used. She often collaborates with artists and science in order to create new shapes, materials and focuses for her collections. Collaborations have included architect Daniel Widrig, milliner Stephen Jones and visual artist Bart Hess. Iris is a must must must designer to research. Definitely look at some of her shows and collections, the garments are just crazy and the inspiration wild.