For Deconstruction/Reconstruction week, my brief was to gather together 8 old garments of mine, which I would take apart to then reconstruct into a new design. The clothes I brought in were…
- A polyester swimsuit
- Pink cotton shirt
- Cotton blue and green tie
- Cotton pink trousers
- White cotton shirt
- Mesh black top
- Sequin grey top
- Linen cream shorts
The first day of the project was begun by studying catwalk trends, where designers such a Vivienne Westwood had created a collection made out of taking apart unwanted clothes found in charity shops, which then would be reconstructed into her own garment designs to form a collection.
To begin my styling process i used mine and my partners old garments to create drapes out of. By experimenting with the clothes like this it made me think outside the box in terms of layering and using inside out clothing as seen in a few examples above. After completing a number of these drapes and drawing quick illustrations from them in my sketchbook I moved on to cutting up some of my clothes.
The idea behind this exercise was to use my imagination by combining many different textures of fabrics and colour combinations, to then layer onto each other to form a new reconstructed garment. This was quite hard for me as I struggle to think off the top of my head when it comes to instantly designing a new design in the space of a few minutes. After experimenting with draping, I moved onto developing templates out of each of my clothing items, where I was experimenting with creating pleats and structures out of the templates on paper. I found this a really easy and simple was to broaden my knowledge on shapes and pleating.
Using paper manipulation I folded and pinned these photocopies onto a mannequin, in the hope of finding new shapes through the process of folding and developing silhouettes created from the paper, which may have not been possible with fabric. This created bold, 3D lookalikes which helped me visualise the layout and placement of the different patterns and colours on my clothing, to then be merged together.
After experimenting with sampling, and draping my cut up garments, i created templates out of each of the clothing items, where as seen above i was experimenting with creating pleats and structure out of the templates on paper.
After completing a workshop in class revolving around exploring the process of quilting, knotting, fraying and patchwork. I gained quite a few ideas towards my final outcome. To further my inspiration towards these ideas, I started researching designers who focus on designing their clothes using some of these techniques. From my research I found the designer Atelier Mimii, who’s work is very unique and uses an array of contrasting colours when adding detail and patterns to her garments.
The message behind her brand is less linked to traditional notions of sustainability, and more to the style that compels her to save every bit of fabric for reuse. As such, most of her garments and accessories are one of a kind and produced in limited quantities. As for the garments, which consist of A-line dresses distressed; hand-dyed velvet dresses with Victorian sleeves and collars; quilted, pearl-covered corsets reminiscent of 16th-century Spanish court costume; and plenty of chunky pearls, and tulle.
I found her concept of work fascinating, as I’ve never come across a designer who doesn’t make large mass quantities of each item of clothing/accessory she designs.
