Wear your hat

Going food shopping. So many things I can do to distract myself from my exam, should be writing and writing and writing. But suddenly it seems like there's a million things I can do in stead, so many displacement activities.

To be or not to be ... a Freak?

When are you a freak? What does it take for people to regard others as freaks? Is it when you are everything surroundings expect you to be, when you are depressed or if you look different?

That is the subject for these drawings and others to follow.

Examinating Sea Life

I am at the moment in the middle of my textile print exam. The course I chose to end and instead get in touch with my inner embroiderress.

The subject of this exam is "life of the sea" - Some find that this is full of inspration other find it kind of unambiguous. I had high expectations and ambitious, extensive ideas, wich I think I'll have shelf. I wanted to print a coralreef with lots of life and then somehow illustrate how trawling destroys these beautiful reefs and killing hundreds of spieces. I still don't know how I can possibly do that, and for the record I have until next Friday to make samples and write an assignment arguing why I choose this sample over that one. Might sound easy, but it take much longer to put together an assignment like that with samples and inspiration.

So far I have made the screen ready for two prints. It will become an print; an anenomone (Nemo-reference) In two layers though. Can't decide if I should go further with the idea from before, or leave it at this.. Though choice. And what about time...

The ornament I'm printing - Imagine it woth two colors.

Inspiration pics will follow and I'll post pictures of the results.

Screen print project

This is my last project from school. We learned some new techniques in textile printing, wich I completely feel in love with. Both were very popular in the 90's and have since been forgotten. Now, though, it seems they are making a come back along with velvet.

I will start by saying that these fabrics were ice white to begin with.  

 With this piece of fabric I plan on creating a jacket.

And this may become a pillow some day, nothing is yet decided...

Using certain chemicals that only destroy the vegetable fiber, you can make the ornament you print on the fabric transparent. This is especially suitable for velvet, but you can also use it on lighter fabrics such as voile or satin when the right fibers are mixed.

The other technique is preferably used with the previous mentioned technique. With that one you can see the top of the fabric wich is a vegetable fiber and where the chemicals have destroyed this fiber, you can see the base of the fabric fx silk. Now, with this technique you can color the vegetable fiber in one color and the animal fiber another. It's all chemicals that bind one color to one fiber. Didn't know I liked playing with chemicals before being able to create beautiful fabrics with it.

Screen printing with - yes another chemical - not a new technique for us, though. This one withdraws the color from the fiber so it almost becomes white, depending on wich kind of colors you ahve used for the fabric.

These fabrics are all velvet so you can see the pink colored silk fiber under the viscose fiber.

And the (quick) design process. 

When just seeing the ornament it could be anything, depending on who you are. Guess it's like looking at the clouds and seeing different animals...

I looked through some books and magazines and just knowing that I wanted to use feathers in some way. I ended up also being inspired by a gas mask though. 

Wedding Dress >> Christening Gown

In December I got an assignment to redesign and transform a wedding dress into a christening gown. The parents thought it was a shame to keep the dress packed away. "But you're not gonna wear it again - you don't want just anyone to wear it - you can't expect that your daughter would want to wear it at her possible future wedding". So they decided it should become the christening gown for their little daughter.

The cut is inspired by the cut of the wedding dress so its origin is recognizable.

 And the finished gown.

 This last picture is taken by my brother, photographer T. Kaare Smith.

A couple of fashion illustrations

 

  

 

The Jacket

Recently we had a big project in school, where we made a jacket. There was certain demands; the inspiration should come from one or more secondhand products made from wool, leather or fur. This detail should in some way be incorporated in the design of the jacket. The jacket should be made of wool, have lining and a collar or hood.

Many thougths and ideas emerged but were thrown away again. We talked about different possibilities in my class and when the conversation hit gloves I knew what to use. I already had a few pairs of vintage gloves at home that I wanted to use somehow but didn't know in wich way. I made some designs for the jacket with the gloves used in different ways and found pictures for inspiration.

After many expressions and designs with a glove on the back or the side or used as decoration on a pocket I decided to put the gloves on the shoulders. 

 

 

The shape of the jacket, with the collar and the diagonal zipper, is inspired from the classic biker jacket. But it still has a sharp look like a military jacket wich is emphasized by the gloves, though the dangling fingers creates a contrast to this sharp look. 

I played with the look of the sleeves wich is divided into two parts and with another colored fabric I put in a box pleat. The color of this box pleat matches the lining wich is black with little blue/green squares. To match the sharp look I made jetted pockets and the lining peep from the opening.

With the design of jacket I hope to challenges the general conception of clothin and things original purpose.

 

 

Random Summer Pics

In all this snow I think it's kinda comforting to look back on the summer and be reminded that the spring will come soon, bringing us long sunny days to spent lying in the grass eating ice cream or drinking beers with friends. So here comes a few random summer pics - From New York, Berlin, Copenhagen and  Roskilde Festival.

BLESS

While everybody is going on about Fashion Week in Copenhagen I wanna show a few pics from the little shop Bless Shop Berlin - one of their flagship stores wich at the moment is "in motion" as it says on their website. Check it out here www.bless-service.de/

They have a way of turning everything upside down and inside out, making the most beautiful designs, playing with conventions and the presumption of the prupose of the products. Their things can't really be put in a box, but exists somewhere between art and design being innovative and pushing your imagination over the limit.

Bruises

Copenhagen Culture Night takes place every year in October and my school are one of the contributers. Third semester creates dresses inspired by a certain theme. The project lasts 2 month and culminates with a fashionshow.

In 2009 the theme was the body and my class was the creators.

There are so many things to be inspired by from the body; cells, illnesses deformations... all of wich can seem gross but can be turned into something beautiful. On this site you can click on a name and see the inspiration and the result. http://tekstilformidler.ucc.dk/Hvadskerder/kulturnat/

My inspiration came from bruises and Egon Schiele's perception of the female body. 

Exercises in fashion illustrations

I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil in my hand and I took drawing and art classes when I was a kid. Back then I drew and painted almost anything - what ever was on my mind; objects, architecture, animals, nude drawing and portraits, but later the theme of my drawings changed to being more fashion illustrations and that's mainly what I still do. 

Last year I took a class in fashion illustration and actually learned techniques behind it. I found it difficult to follow the teacher's advice because I was more comfortable with my self-taught techniques. But I stopped resisting the instructions and learned a lot from it. 

These are some of the drawings made in that class. 

These drawings all represent very different techniques. The first was a dress just hangning there. The second was drawing a live model (one of the other girls in the class) which was done without lifting the pencil from the paper. The third one was different pieces of clothes draped on a mannequin and we really had to make it realistic. The last one was started by spashing watercolour on the paper and seeing how it could grow to be a fashion illustration. 

I found that I really like being very meticulous and taking my time - it's almost like meditaion for me, which I never realised before because I'm also very impatient. 

I don't feel that secure using colors and the result is always either very good or very bad, but those that come out very good like this last one, I really love.

Pattern Magic

As we begin a new project at my school the teachers usually find us a couple of books for inspiration, and they just purchased these two; Pattern Magic vol. 1 and 2. 

The books show these amazing sculpturel patterns. they are almost like origami - and it's such a fantastic source for unlimited inspiration. 

As a fashion student you easily get nerdy about cuttings and patterns, imagining how you create products like these. I am especially crazy about the example on the first book with the squares. 

Even though the book is in Japanese the pattern development is very easy to understand so you can still use it. 

So Pattern Magic vol. 1 and 2 are just another two on the long list of books I dream about buying.