To begin accessories week I was told to bring in any form of recycled or environmental friendly material. I brought in used envelopes which I planned on turning into an accessory of my choice. The benefits to using paper envelopes means they are easy to fold and manipulate into any shapes. From playing around with the structure of envelopes I thought of exploring origami style fashion which gave me lots of ideas for creating a 3D style structure as an accessory.
Origami is an art culture with over a thousand years of history, it is the art of folding any type of materials to create sculptural designs. When people hear of origami fashion, they may think that the garment is made by folding without any cutting or stitching. However, origami fashion also refers to the process of quilting and pleating, as presented in Chanel’s Origami Bag collection designed by Karl Lagerfeld.
This image was taken from my first day experimenting with creating a structure out of envelopes, I found this exercise really helpful as it made me develop a shape and style which could be used for my outcome. I was then told to research a role model of mine who would be relevant to my project to be used as a muse. I decided to use Karl Lagerfeld, as shown above in my research as he also explored the trend of origami, as well as being a huge influence to many upcoming designers. My task was then to choose one full body image of him, to be multiplied and stuck into my sketchbook so i would then explore the placement design aspect of my accessory, and to see where it would fit best on the body. Even though this was a good idea, I found it wasn’t that useful for me as I was already stuck on the idea of creating a waist belt accessory.
To progress into creating my final design I really wanted to incorporate more colours, textures and materials which gave me the idea to use recycled card, newspaper and magazine pages to create different textures and strength of paper throughout my outcome, also giving it a better overall shape and structure. The luggage labels seen came to my mind when thinking of envelopes, as people often use labels instead of cards to save money and be more sustainable.
