For my project relating to Black History Month, the subcategory i have decided to explore is the patterns, colours and style that go into the costumes at Notting Hill Carnival, and how they all take inspiration from traditional African designs.
Notting Hill Carnival is originally known as a Caribbean Carnival, when it was held in St Pancras town hall as a response to the problematic state of race relations at the time, and a celebration of the end of slavery. Recently it has been viewed as a dynamic celebration of London’s multicultural diversity, but still holding its original traits as Caribbean culture. The Caribbean culture has historically been influenced by African and Amerindian traditions. For my exploration of the style of patterns and colour that go into the Notting Hill Carnival costumes, I will be using the holiday I am currently on in South Africa to collect photos and fabric samples of interesting and colourful African designs. By visiting traditional markets and shops, exploring their signature colours and styles which i can use as inspiration for my work and incorporate into my design board.
As for my research on significant people who are inspiration to Black History Month, I begun by exploring role models who changed the stereotypes for black women. Elizabeth Keckley was a huge inspiration, as being born into slavery, she worked her way up to become a author, civil activist and successful seamstress to then finally open a dressmaking business in 1860. Her talents in dress making earned her enough money to buy freedom for herself and her son.
Ann Cole Lincoln has a similar life story as Elizabeth Keckley. Born in 1898 she was the great grand-daughter of a skilled seamstress slave and white plantation owner. She was known for being the first African/American who become a noted fashion designer, her designs were favoured by wealthy and socially prominent women, these women often told her to sell her designs for hundreds of dollars less than her competitors.
I begun my research in Cape Town, by visiting contemporary shops which are very popular with the black and white South Africans. I found the colours and designs they use on their clothes really beautiful, and not something you would commonly see back in the UK.
These patterns all follow a similar style of colour, design, details and shape, I love how bold they are and how all the colours compliment each other and blend well together. Another detail I noticed on the jackets were that many of them had been designed not only on the outer side, but they also have a completely different use of colour and pattern inside the jacket, so it can be worn inside out, which is a hugely popular trend and something I wold like to try include in my final garment if I have the time.
Although my concept board revolves around costumes seen at Notting Hill Carnival, I picked out three shapes that I found interesting to expand some designs from. When developing my design ideas my aim was to ideally stick to these three shapes and use a bright colour palette, as this best represents African designs to me.
In terms of thinking about materials to use, I wanted to create a texture that would be soft to the touch, but also make it as bold and 3D as possible. Felt is the first fabric that came to my head, not only is it durable but it also has a great stretch which means its perfect for layering and then stuffing it. As I have experimented with felt lots in the past, this gave me confidence in my ability to create a final garment from. I also made a small experiment with weaving wool in my sketchbook, also this experiment turned out well and is a great way of expressing colour, I feared it would take up all of my time for this project which isn’t ideal.
Using my design ideas I had expressed in my book, I decided to use screen printing to transfer my work onto the felt. I was really happy with how these prints came out and to mix it up I experimented with using different colours of screen print ink and the colour of my felt I was printing onto.
I loved how my dress came out, although I went over time in terms of uploading a photo of my final outcome, it was something that I felt was necessary to take my time with, to produce the best quality of work that I was happy with. My aim for my final outcome was to design a garment that would be suitable for costume wear, as well as expressing the colours and patterns seen in traditional African garments.
The painting in the background of my shoot, was created by an African artist who lives in a township in Cape Town, I thought this would tie in elements of where my design ideas came from as well as using the colours and style of the painting to help make my garment look even brighter and bolder.
