Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Micro Modular Fashion

This is my last term project: Micro Modular Fashion

We are lucky enough to have some lectures with some great thinkers of sustainability and design. Kate Fletcher is a researcher at LCF and regularly has sessions with us. On the first one she asked us to read this article in preparation for it. It's on the state of the ecology today and really puts things into perspective. Her book is definitely my bible when it comes to sustainable fashion. Been reading loads around the topic and hope to post about some but the book club on ethical fashion forum for reviews!

Only yesterday we there was an inspiring talk (marathon) located at St. Martins and part of our Uni-wide green week. Jonathan Chapman was a keynote speaker; I soaked up his book emotionally durable design, so seeing him in flesh was quite something. Glad to be able to say that he's a good speaker. He recently did some consulting for Puma who seem to be addressing sustainability recently... might write a post later on what I think about quantifying and managing sustainability (read: not too keen on that idea). Carole Collet was also there, who I'd heard at the interweave event at the Victoria and Albert museum; she helped set up the MA textile futures at CSM and in researching into biological structures for textiles. Amazing really. Some other PhD students spoke & I was hugely inspired (kind of made me want to do one?! we'll see).

I recently discovered, pretty much by chance, openwear. It was after visiting this website that I made myself a pair of slippers for the chilly winter days. Have a browse and you'll see why. This initiative seems to be set up partly at least by Becky Earley, who was also at the talk and set up TEDs Ten. This is something that will really help me with my current essay actually and for which I will be interviewing Tim Parsons on Friday which I am excited about. Talking about essays... ciao for now

RCA MA WIP

And now the Royal College of Art MA work in progress. (Chronologically the wrong way around, went to this one first). Some amazingly innovative creations.

Again, I seemed to be drawn to geometric shapes.

This is similar to what I did for a term 1 project! Love the use of the lace here.

CSM MA WIP

Now some piccies from the Central Saint Martins Masters work in progress.

Sorry the quality's not amazing. And as I went to see them a little while ago, I don't actually have all the names/courses to go with them but if I wanted to look them up, they will be on the website soon I recon!

Us MA Fashion Environment girls noticed that quite a few parallels existed in the addressed topics: environmental degradation, social isolation, physical inactivity, ecological impacts of textiles, emotional durability, user engagement.

This is the new kings cross building. Really love it, so glad we can use the library & learning space there! Although I've heard it actually has less space for the students to work in, surprisingly.

MA Textile Futures

An altenative to fur: textiles created by brushing animals then sewing the hair onto a base fabric. Apparently she had a discussion with a girl on my course who is into second hand and recycling leather (they agreed to disagree).

Now if this isn't just my kind of thing!

A project to encourage physical activity in a time where we are so inactive in our offices, in front of computers.

Natural dyeing project. Her business cards were little droplets too.

Loving the tesselation & geomteric shapes together with the less structured, soft wool.

Textiles inspired by living skin cells. If skin can be bred in petri dishes why not create textile that way?! These skin bits were even edible.

Other MA's

Making eating ice-cream into a ritual.

(This reminded me of our Kolding project :) )

Ashquarium - the fish will suffer under your smoking habit.

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I liked the folded trays for business cards.

Calamondin Smiles

Give us a smile!

Sunday, 5 February 2012

MA exhibitions at RCA, LCF and CSM

While we MA Fashion and Environment students have another year to go (well, 10 months, yikes!); it was great to see the Royal College of Art and Central St. Martin's work in progress exhibitions, as well as our own London College of Fashion's final MA exhibit. Very inspiring; and I am trying to imagine how it will feel being in their shoes not toooo long from now. Hence, first dose: LCF.