Vulgarity - 17th Nov
I enjoyed mind mapping and discussing what fashion communication actually encompassed because I still wasn't sure about its actual meaning. I also enjoyed taking the word vulgarity apart to decipher its true meaning. It was interesting to do primary research into vulgarity in the form of speed dating because it was different to the usual group discussions that we have. I was able to receive more personal opinions because my peers were able to deliver their ideas one on one.
I asked members of my class 'How vulgar are you from 1-10 and why? (1 - not very vulgar, 10 - very vulgar)
Person 1: 5/6 - she often found herself talking without thinking which can sometimes come across as offensive, and therefore create a negative first impression.
Person 2: 5 - he's a conservative person who's aware of how one should act, he's always kept his taught values and has always conformed to them. Wishes he had
what challenged me
Person 3: 3 - very safe personality - minimalistic in terms of dress sense for example
Person 4 : 5 - people from certain cultures are more judgemental than others, e.g i often show a lot of skin which can be seen as vulgar.
Person 5: 1 - people who are vulgar want to promote reaction and want to be talked about, Over the top very flamboyant. While I shy away from everything
What I found interesting about the responses that I gained was that everyone had different interpretations of the word vulgar dependent on their cultural background and their mother tongue. The translation of the word in some languages focuses more on the words that you chose to use (swear words/ derogoratory terms) while others the word vulgar was more commonly used to describe behaviour.
What challenged me today was working quickly a to take effective photos that were related to the key words we were given. I guess it was good that we worked in small groups because you could discuss and ideas could be fed off each other. We skipped between different key words quite a lot but this was because we could decide on the phrase that we felt had the most potential. Eventually we chose the phrase 'too much'. I am very happy with our out come because it was relatively simple and because. It was staged it meant that we could essentially construct our photo and we didn't have to rely on the chances of catching something out of the ordinary on the road. Furthermore because we decided to construct our photo we chose an appropriate location to cater to our needs. Initially we thought it would be a good idea to have the rest of the oranges on display in the background so the orange colour would be kept consistent and the idea of 'too much' could be explicitly shown. While it was a logical in context idea I do feel like the background was a little bit distracting. If we had more time we would have tried taking the oranges outside of other super market context to a less distracting location or maybe even to an adventure are where there is a zip wire because carrying that many oranges on a zip wire is completely inappropriate.
Another reason why I am extremely happy with our outcome is because incorporated humour. I love when photography is funny because it engages the audience more and genuinely can have a positive effect on the mood of the viewer,
Too Much - 22nd Nov
I found the session with Mark Today very insightful and enjoyable. I found looking through the range of publications cool as they essentially were a set of initial ideas in which we could work with and develop to create our own formats. My favourites of the example publications that we were shown can be seen below:
Seeing the range of publications opened my eyes to the possibilities of publications and how they don't have to be displayed in a simple basic format.
The computer room session was really interesting because I am not a proficient user of indesign, but by the end of his demonstration I already felt a lot more confident and exited to go on and import and arrange my photos.
Following this we decided to have a play with making A3 format examples. This a good move because its one thing to think mentally and another to think practically and physically. I created 3 different formats in which i think could all work. later on tonight i'm going to take a look at my formats and decide which one is the most effective at displaying our final photos.
At Lunch we attended a talk on the BA Fashion communication course. The information we received was very necessary and gave me a huge shock because i didn't realise how competitive the courses were to get into. I guess this has made me think about the quality of my work and the importance of punctuality, and personal projects as these are all very important components that are taken into consideration.
This afternoon we did another shoot which i fee was 10x as successful as yesterdays. This was because he had a larger variety of clothes and partially planned the shoot before we did it. there were less people in the room which took pressure off because we didn't have to be speedy, instead we could take our time and evaluate the photos we could take in order to take even more successful ones. Our most successful Images can be found below.
On a whole i enjoyed today thoroughly because we were very productive and planned what we did before we did it.
Nov 24th Crit and New Project Intro
Today we had our crit, I feel that the publication I created in the time frame was very successful because of its dynamic presentation. My work was well received by both Mark and my peers which was great. The elements of my work that were highlighted as the strongest were the format and the photos themselves. Despite the fact that I only had three looks it was agreed that this worked well because they were all of a similar colour scheme besides the Pink set, which acted as a climax in the Publication.
My personal favourite photo within the publication is the one above for the reason that its theme is a crossbreed of 'too much' and 'exposed bodies'. It falls into the too much category because of the pose and how all my limbs have been expressively involved and the 'exposed bodies' category because of the fact that my whole leg is practically exposed despite the rest of my body being more or less covered up. I feel that the way in which I have dragged the material that is supposed to be covering my leg so elegantly away from my leg symbolises the way in which something of high value would be unveiled.
I am extremely happy with the format of the booklet because the photos can be seen as a collection in a variety of different ways. I feel that this is a very dynamic feature as it lets the viewer take maters into their own hands and have a very personalised interaction with the arrangement of the images. This was created by taking inspiration from a publication i had seen which had incorporated two slits that enabled the original concertina booklet to transform into a full sized poster.
Moving forward I am going to make a more professional copy using indesign which i will have proffessionally printed.
Regarding the new project that was introduced to us today, I'm not entirely sure how I am feeling about it. When i had initially hear that our project was about fashion film i was very intrigued as it is an element of Fashion Photography that i am yet to try. I am however sceptical because the only film knowledge i have is how to use the mobile application Splice in which you can input photos and short videos in order to create a short film piece. I have only used this app for personal use however to make a virtual album for friends albums. I suppose this project will allow me to learn new skills and try out an aspect of Fashion Photography that has taken off in the Fashion Industry in the most recent decade. I am also quite exited to delve deep into the history of film. Today i was made aware that the first production of a moving image was produced in 1890. Its crazy because being born in the 21st Century, moving image has practically made my childhood through television, cinema and Modern technologies such as Computers, iPads and iPhones etc.
So i decided that my publication needed a revamp so i decided to stick to a more traditional format but break traditional rules with the layout.
Below is my publication
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Crit & Intro to Fashion Film and Moving Image
Todays crit went well, Mark was fond of the variety of ways in which my publication could be viewed. He mentioned that the styling was very strong in relation to the concept of 'To Much' in relation to vulgarity. The next step for me will be to have the booklet printed off professionally.
It was interesting to see the different types of Fashion Film that have developed over the decades. E.g The progression from black and white films to colour, and the focus in relation to advertising films. In the 1910s it was more important for advertising films to physically demonstrate an example of the products practicality, nowadays due to the height of impatience the focus is initially on keeping the viewer engaged and the deliverance of a quick and concise advert. The Warner Corset Advertisement and The Flash Advert are two contrasting examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BSNW4R_poM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIR5dNN7o1w
I am looking forward to this project because I have no experience with Film.
Nov 28th - Personal Statement & Research
Today's personal statement session with Tim was very insightful as it allowed me to see the differences between the UCAS statements for art related subjects and generic academic subjects. While i have been used to the idea of using the maximum character limit to express who i am and why i am appropriate for my desired course, the csm Ucas guidelines emphasised the importance of being concise but meaningful with what you choose to write. I made a promising start with my personal statement. I found it useful to write brief bullet points in response to each of the paragraphs on the guideline sheet. I was able then to hand pick the crucial elements of my notes and transform them into sentences. Tonight i aim to complete paragraph two.
Tim showed us some of his work today. It was really inspiring to here that in his film project into Freud he initially encountered many problems when collating documentation (e.g that photographing the work space where Freud used to paint wasn't grabbing enough to create a full film out of) . He didn't however let this get in the way of his success. He alternatively thought of other ways in which he could communicate the works of Freud ( despite the barrier of not being allowed access to interviewing with Freud). This is definitely motivational because it makes you realise that theres no need to fall short of success because of hindrances. Where there is a will there is DEFINITELY a way. Tim proved this by creating an outstanding 14minute film production.
One problem i and many others experienced today was that the internet was down. This meant that we couldn't update workflow, engage in our instinctive way of researching. At first i though ahh this is so annoying i basically can't do anything today, but then concluded that 1 i didn't travel 1hr and 15mins to have an unproductive day nor is NO INTERNET the end of the world; despite how traumatic it sounds. Instead i took it upon myself to go to the library and take a look at some books in the fashion design section to see if i could gain some inspiration for my dance related fashion film. There were no photocopying services as there was no internet but i took some pictures on my phone which I hope to take inspiration from for models costumes and shapes.
1st Dec - Crit & New Idea
Todays crit didn't go as well as I had thought it would go. Instead of receiving a positive response to my work, Tim made me aware that the film focused too much on movement rather than Fashion. He said the movements were lovely, but while i preferred the silhouette films, he in fact preferred the other dances films, This was because the beginning of most of my dance videos drew attention to the garments because of the slow pace that i began the dances with. The advice Tim gave me was to focus on colour and draw intense attention to the garments through slow movements. I left the crit a bit disappointed because i felt that I had to start my whole project again with little time. I took a 30 min walk to relax so I could get started with filming new footage. I started to use the garments that I Had brought to style myself in. I then had the idea to tangle myself in the garments and see what it would look like to try and untangle my self. I liked this Idea because it was kind of representing how some often when im etting ready to go somewhere i try on every item of clothing that I have before tearing them all off and ending up frustrated. After filming this I decided that i would try to style myself in paper Zara bag. For a test shoot i thought it was quite successful. The outcomes interested me because I was using an unassociated item to style myself in. Usually you would wear the contents of the Zara bag not THE Zara bag. below are some screenshots from the videos.
Tonight I will conduct some research into the Ethics of Zara as a company and tomorrow I will go to Zara and collect some more bags in which I can make some more garments with.
In My next shoot I think Im going to wear heels and make the Zara bag Garments appear more professional ill use selotape to hold the bag in position and maybe walk down a runway wearing the garments.
2nd Dec - Reshoot
Todays shoot was very successful because I had thought about the materials i was going to style myself with, the framing and purpose of the video prior to shooting. The purpose I decided on was to use the 'waste' of a fashion brand to create more fashion. By creating garments out of paper bags usually used to put clothes in the value is reinterpreted.
I also happy with the shoot because the videos are somewhat comical because of the brashness of the creation of the clothes. Instead of using a sewing machine to neatly create the clothes with i used tape and scissors. I feel like this works because its showing how easy it is to transform 'trash' into items of create clothing items of great value. If i had more time and he access to a sewing machine i think i would have tried to set up a table with a lamp and Sewing machine and see the bags together to create items similar to that of Zara. This would have been effective because it changes ur view completely of a paper bag. Its would make your realise that a bag is essentially a piece of free material that you can put to great use. While people do use bags to store things in bags are often just put in the recycle bin. This is good because recycling is Good for the planet, but this Fashion Waste Reuse and Recycle concept shows how you can reuse these waste items in a way that could save you money (less of a need to but new clothes.
Tonight I will proceed to starting to create my video on Premiere.
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Danielle Romeril - Thurs 5th Jan
Todays session with Danielle was very insightful in the sense that nobody really tells you about the behind the scenes elements of being a designer. From an outsiders perspectives you know they design the clothes and you see them displayed on their website for extortionate amounts of money. Romeril shared with us the role of a set designer and stylist in achieveing the best photos. It was interesting to see th correlation between the root of the brand and the models she choses to use. A lot of emphasise was laid upon the models not being "too pretty" (too commercial), "too skinny" (too unhealthy looking) This confused me as its very different to the well known luxury brands of today. References to the following phrases however allowed me to make sense of her specific chose of model.
Following Romeril?s Introduction Amelia and I had a look through the garments, While they weren?t to my taste it was important that i retained an healthy mind to prevent a my opinions of being a hinderance to my creativity. Our favourite looks can be found bellow.
The Vulgar - Exhibition
Today Valeria and I visited the Vulgar exhibition. I have ever been to a fashion exhibition before so being surrounded my many garments presented on Mannequins was a new experience for me. There were no garments that jumped out at me on the first floor but the video that was on show was interesting as it gave us insight into the opinions of Fashion Icons such as Stephen Jones. He translated the term 'vulgarity' to mean 'greed', 'insensitivity' and 'immodesty'. It was also highlighted in the film that there is no direct antonym for the word 'vulgar'. I tried my hardest to challenge this but i found that the words I thought could work already had antonyms. It was also mentioned that the word Vulgar was unable to be used outside of a judgemental context. Confrontational, was another associated word. I fully agree with this because the word is so rarely used, that when it is use d you feel the word with maximum effect. I feel like it is a special word that is saved for extreme occasions only. Another fashion icon Anna Piachi made reference to culture differentiation in the sense that the boundaries of acceptability in the western world are constantly being pushed. While one culture may find piercings and tattoos completely acceptable for example, another may absolutely despise the idea of marking the body, subsequently deem such an act as vulgar.
The garmnent that stood out to me the most in the exhibition was Hussein Chalayan's 'Dress with Acrylic nails'. This was because of the absurdity of the concept of nails present anywhere else besides on finger or in the bin. While the nails were obviously fake it still brought about a slight uncomfortable feeling just looking at the dress because you only usually see 10 finger nails at a time, so seeing 100s was rather unappealing to me. I must admit however that the concept is fabulous as it evidently explores the idea of 'too much' as category of vulgarity. Its kind of similar to seeing LOADS chicken legs on an office table and feeling sick because they are out of place and because chickens only have two legs and they would have obviously been detached from many chickens' bodies. It was interesting to see how by having so many nails painted different colours created a sort of abstract pattern.
Another garment that I was drawn to were these 'hair shoes' by Alessandro Michele for Gucci. They were of interest to me because they are completely opposite to nowadays shoe trends. The defy the current shoe laws of texture, shape and aesthetic perfectly. What probably makes these shoes so vulgar is the fact that hair unless it is on the head is seen as disgusting, Unless in the form of a wig. I overheard this man in the exhibition saying 'imagine you invited a woman on a date and she was wearing those shoes' This was quite a funny thought because I am not sure what I would say or do.
Below are some notes from the 'Exposed Bodies' extract as we weren't allowed to take photos.
Vulgarity is like beauty in the eye of the beholder
Its an emblem of artificiality.
We don't think of animals as vulgar. No baby, cloud or tree is vulgar by nature.
The sexual body is vulgarised by clothes or their absence
Vulgarity is most often associted with sex, when it is not associated with wealth.
We only vilgurize our pleasures, and so where ther is pleasure there is always the temptation of vilgarity
The vulgar always make us wonder about their pleasure.
The vulgar are enjoying when they should be admiring.
The vulgar are showing off when they should be showing some respect.
Perhaps we think of pleasure as vulgar. There are no vulgar fears.
Too Much - 21st Nov
Today was very self directed which made the day seem very long. We experienced alot of challenges today because the third member of our group went home ill (which meant we lost alot of the garments). Fortunately we did catch a few pictures of the first outfit. the fact that i had not done any styling before meant that this activitiy was completely new to me but because we had breifly brainstormed the phrase 'too much' we had a lot to work with. The main subtheme we initally worked with was 'restrictions' and how having too many coats on for examples can inhibit movement and you ability to perfom every dy activities. Subsequently I began by putting 3 shirts on the model and a number or ties. I actually found this quite fun and was very happy with the outcome because of how exaggerated the shirts and ties looked on the model.
I found that besides the above look i struggled to create other effective looks. My peer Valeria however was very skilled at styling whereas I was a better model. We realised our strengths and used these to the best of our abilities. While modelling I was able to verbally participate in the direction of the styling.
Regrettably we weren't able to make as many looks as we had hoped for, this was because Helen the third member of our group failed to actively participate in any majority of todays activities. We reiterated to her that this was a group task which meant that her participation was required, she offered herself as a model but that was about it.
I enjoyed working as a team with Valeria today because we took photos of each other while we were styling each other so that one another could see the process and comment on what we thought worked and what didn't. Today was very frustrating though for the reasons outlined above.
I think our work today would have been better if we had brought in multiples of a wider range of garments. This would have helped us to communicate the phrase 'too much better' we would have also been able to create more looks.
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Nov 29th - Builder's Club & Intro to Premiere
The session today with The Builder's Club was very insightful, It was good have an insiders view of working in the commercial world for all types of clients. I learned that sometimes you may be given a project that you are not particularly fond of but you have to pursue and do it anyway because primarily it pays the bills, but secondly because it widens your experience and someone my see your work and subsequently you may be offered another job. All in all its important to take as many opportunities that are thrown at you as you can (paid or un paid). I also learned that a lot of the time if the job your doing pays you well or you were given a small budget then you are likely to have less freedom in regards to the project. On the other hand if you are paid less then you tend to have more fun completing the job because you have more freedom.
30th Nov - 1st Shoot
Using my my mood board I conducted a shoot to reflect the malleability of fashion trends, symbolised by dance and silhouette movement. I had two looks which focused on colour moving silhouettes. Some of the movements looked cool especially in the shadow videos, but overall the film I had taken focused too much on movement rather than Fashion.
Fashion Waste - Reuse and Recylcle
5th Dec - Styling Workshop
Today wasn't very enjoyable, I had realised that I don't really like styling adI prefer the production element of fashion communication. I learned that having a mood board prior to the styling session and shoot helps to focus the shoot as it gives you a basis to work off. We learned this the hard way because our mood board we made this morning wasn't very related to the word choices that we had to create looks from. feedback from the crit was half positive half constructively negative because the to photos we chose to share didnt work well together and they weren't very reflective of the project title of 'Do, Undo, redo'. After class we went to the library to create a new mood board which was more related to our shoot and the words we were given.
10th Jan
Today was very productive. Amelia and I finalised our set deign, we shot the photos for our campaign, edited the photos for the campaign, devised a structure and completed the final version of our campaign. The shoot day went particularly well because Amelia and I collectively used our skill sets which enabled us to work effectively. We designated each other roles according to our strengths which meant that all aspects of our work were strong. Our models were cooperative and understood the ethos and background to our shoot. Explaining our project to them was beneficial because it enabled us to gain insight to things we may otherwise not have seen. For example one of our models suggested that we had the string on their shoulder interacting with the actual garments. We were fond of this idea because it created a subtle depth of field and removed the static nature of a normal set design. It became integrated with the garments which therefor elicited unity.
Regarding the photo selection process we didn't really struggle. We sat down and favourited the best images and narrowed our photos down further by choosing the ones which communicated more attitude and were more likely to be see on a campaign. Our favourite photos can be found bellow.
We had a few ideas when it came to the layout of our A2 poster. Initially we were going to use an image which featured the signature embroidered trousers and a more detailed photo of the embroidery. Like this:
We thought we would research different campaign layouts and see which would be most appropriate to our photographs. A Celine campaign caught our eye so we implemented the format into our own work.
We think this format works well because the set design is not too complicated thus not distracting. The peach boarder around the image works well because it breaks up the white background within the image. Additionally we took a swatch of the red colour featured in the background and toned down the opacity thus reducing its intensity. I feel like the colour is complementary as it is neutral and similar to the skin tones.