Designer Profile:Eiko Ishioka

 Designer Profile:Eiko Ishioka

Oscar winning costume designer, who also worked in stage,screen,advertising, and as wikipedia suggests, has been called "Japan's leading art director and graphic designer". Which proves that you can delve into any creative discipline.Her work has also been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has worked collobratively with Julie Taymor, on Spiderman:Turn off the dark in 2011.

And has most recently worked on MirrorMirror in 2012, before her death.

It is also said that alot of her work has inspired many fashion designers such as Alexander Mcqueen and Viktor and Rolf.Her designs have been seen at the 2008 olympics, in Operas,Broadway and Screen.

1992,Dracula adaptation by Francis Frod Copolla.

2002,Varekai,by cirque du Soleil.Based on Greek drama of Lcarus.

2006,Graces Jones Hurricane Tour.

2012 MirrorMirror. Eiko's last work. With extravagent gowns and fantastic adaptation from the stereotypical snow white costumes.

The Metropolitan museum of art: The Costume Instituite

The Costume Institute

Houses a collection of over thirty-five thousand costumes,from across the world, from of period of seven centuries. It is not shown permantely due to the delicate nature of the fabrics, but instead exhibitions are held at different stages through the year.

As the website describes, the costume institute began as an indepedent entity, called the museum of Costume Art, 1937.Due to the financial support of the fashion industry in 1946,the Museum of Costume Art merged with The Metropolitan Museum of Arts, and in 1959 became a curatorial department.

The fashion industry is behind alot of the support and fund-raising for the Institutes exhbitions. An example being the Gala Benefit, the primary fundraising event for the Institute.And has now created the Friends of the Costume Institute, a group that supports the Institutes,programs, exhibitions etc,encouraging fashion as an art form.

It houses work from the likes off: Valentio;the house of Givenchy;Issey Miyake and yohji Yamamoto.

Designer Profile:Edith Head

American Costume Designer, and winner of 8 Academy Awards.

1897-1981

Worked for both paramount and Universal, two of the leading film producing companies,working on over a thousand films.

 Anything goes 1956. designed for Jeanmarie.

Sabrina 1954. Design for Audrey Hepburn.

A Place in the sun 1952 Elizabeth Taylor.

Design for Grace Kelly 1955, To catch a Thief.

Head was known for her fashion and costume. I love her work because of the authenticity  of the 1950's fashion. The slim high waists with the wide skirts, is a period in 20th century fashion that i really love. It portrays elegance,femininity and enhances female curves. I am also interested in Heads work, as she worked alongside Audrey Hepburn in alot of her films, an actress who really inspires me due to her elegance and natural beauty.Head worked on many iconic films with main iconic actresses.

Continued Collaborative Screen-Print

We have further progressed with our team screen print, and managed to get it printed onto calico fabric, to use as samples for our individual projects aswell as a piece each to work together to create a larger constructed piece, such as a garment or textile installation.

 Above are some images of the experiements we did with layering and the light box to create different designs that we could have devloped further to create an extended surface pattern screen print. We used a layer of lace, a screen print from another groups, bubble wrap and brown parcel paper. 

After experimenting, we then began to screen print 4 test pieces that we could then use for samples for our own project.

Here is image of them.

We are now currently waiting for our final prints to dry.

Forrest Pixie Meets the Little Mermaid

I discovered this image on pinterest and it really interested me, due to the detail and layering of the fabircs to create such an exquisite garment which could protray a character. It has a very woodland creature/ underwater creature appearance therefore i feel it would be good inspiration for a character such as Aerial from the Little Mermaid, or some form of fairytale or woodland creature. The rich gold and creame colour palette creates  an expensive feel to the fabric which i think it innovative as it could quite easily be a very cheap fabric which has made to appear expensive. These type of tricks are very useful when trying to create costumes for theatre, which often have a very tight budget.

Pinterest

I have recently registered on website called pinterest, which is very useful in creating online moodboards that i can gather inspiration for different subjects. It has really helped my awareness of current artists as my homepage allows me to see all sorts of images and work that other people have pinned. Currently i am working to create four boards,Costume,Villian,Fine art and Fashion. It helps me keep updated with all the recent collections and costume inspired garments.

http://pinterest.com/megbranagan

collaborative screen printing

Over the last two days we have had to a mini project where we had to work in groups to collaborate our current work to create a design, to then screen print.

Within my group we were under the catergory of Nature, therefore we based our dsign around branches, which later came to look like coral and tenticles.

We began the process by initiating how we want our print to look and what we want it to focus on, we choose organic shapes and textures.We then photocopied a piece of all of our indepdent project to gather marks and textured pieces to then use to create an image. We explored different compositions and choose the last image as we believed it represented all of our work rather than just a few.

We then had to mimic this pattern using black paper to test whether the image was a succesfuk black and white image, and therefore suitable for screen print, as it does nto allow tnes of grey.

Whilst doing this we developed our idea further by choosing to use the pattern and textures within the blank areas rather than as the branches as we felt it would work better as a surface pattern rather than just a screen printed image.

We then layed down the asotate over the black and white image and collaged,painted and printed into the areas that there was no black occupation,which resulted in the image above. We believe that this has some interesting marks but we then had to work over it over a light box to try and emphasise some of the grey tones so that they could be printed also. I look forward to the outcome as i feel it will have lots of free marks and experiementation on it.

Isabelle De Borchgrave

                                                                      Paperwork costume

Les ballets russes:

I really liked this work of isabella de Borchgrave's because of the extensive use of colour and patterns within one costume.I also like that she has used her work to create a story through the use of photography.Moreover i like that you can see the worked paper, from the lighting and the creases that it has created. 

Papiers a la mode:

I really like this piece form this collection as it shows the heavily worked paper through the application of surface pattern. Moreover i like the shaping of the waistline and how authentic it appears. I really like her work because it holds great shape form using stiff paper, i also like the appearance that the paper has, creating creasing and further texture to the patterns and overall costumes.