Describes mood board exercise, Leigh Bowery inspired design, process & patterns
Shortly before lockdown, we were tasked with researching a 'brand' of our choosing and, from this research, to create a mood board which expresses the ethos of the brand. I had wanted to look more into the Club Kids scene, with the artist and designer Leigh Bowery being my main focus. As Leigh's designs were never commercially available, I decided to also look at the various designers who were themselves inspired by Leigh's work. My mood board is as follows:
It was helpful to lay these out and note recurring themes. Within my design I wanted to incorporate knitting, high contrast colours and irregular shapes. I also liked the snakey shapes used by both Alexander McQueen and the artist Pyuupiru.
Initially it had been my plan to use the University's Shima Seiki computerised knitting machine to make jacquard fabric which I could then use to make up my design but, as lockdown started, I began to look again at what I could use that I already had in my home. With my domestic knitting machine I started with the basics, knitting stripes.
Although time consuming, the advantage of knitting my own fabric meant I could quickly change the width of the stripes and change the whole look. I could also knit only as much fabric as I needed. Happy that the machine was still working, I started experimenting with 3D shapes.
I wanted to make a really long snake shape that wrapped around the whole body - I liked the contrast between something soft and comforting like knitwear and something alarming like a snake. I worked out how to knit tubes, by first knitting on the front bed, then the back bed, but found that they were impossible to stuff by the time they came off the machine. I found I could stuff them as I went by forcing wadding between the beds every few rows.
For the main body of the costume I wanted something asymmetric and also wanted something which stood away from the body. In the book Pattern Magic, the author (Nakamichi, T. (2010).Pattern magic. Laurence King.) describes something called the Otoshiana (drop hole) technique which I adapted to work on the back of the garment.
The pattern pieces needed to be treated differently, depending on where they stood on the body. The insides of each tube section had a stiff interfacing fused to the lining, so that the drop hole would stand away from the body and not collapse. The shoulder piece was also interfaced, as this section didn't need to be stretchy. The grainline of each section was cut in such a way that each segment pointed in the direction of the drop hole.
The greyed out area on each pattern piece indicates the inner of the tube, and where the thickest interfacing was applied.
Each segment was quilted before assembly to give it yet more stability.
The segments were then all joined and overlocked to enclose all seams.
Thanks to the quilting with stretch fabrics and interfacing only certain sections, the entire back panel stands away from the body, and yet still retains its stretch.
For the second sleeve, I wanted a contrast with the first sleeve. My original sketches for this involved a bulbous arm, made of 2 knitted spheres on top of each other.
The first attempt at the sleeve followed this design. I created a sphere using a lot of darts on the top and base. The pattern pieces are as follows:
On reflection, I think it would have been better to use vertical segments, like you'd see in the way a basketball is put together. I think it would be easier to pattern match the stripes and you'd have the opportunity to interface alternate sections for strength.
As it was, these spheres didn't stand up on their own, so were padded. Padding with wadding was something I wanted to avoid as I think the end result is a bit disappointing and cartoonish.
This was quickly abandoned. But seeing it attached to the main body helped me realise that having a bulky arm on that side of the garment actually detracted from the shaping at the back and made it too heavy on that side. I instead cut the sleeve flat, but kept the contrasting stripe widths.
I added the knitted snake and ribbed bands for the cuffs, neckband and waistband. The original plan for the snake was to fix it permanently in place but I think by threading wire through it, the user can wind it around their body as they see fit.
REFLECTIONS
Making my own fabric for this piece has enabled me to be even more hands on and have more control over the final look. Working with fabrics that I have actually made instead of fabrics that I have bought forces me to consider the end product earlier on in the design process but, through experimenting with what is achievable, new possibilities open up. This is something I intend to take forward in my final major project. I want to make use of the University's knitting machines - both the automatic and the manual industrial. My plan is to use the Shima Seiki to make larger amounts of jacquard fabric which I can then manipulate (e.g. like the knitted then quilted fabric above) and the Dubied machines, which are a different gauge to my own machine, for more hands on experimentation.
With regards to fabric manipulation, as with the previous Comme des Garçons exercise, I have found that isolating sections of a pattern and manipulating them individually has enabled me to get multiple properties from what outwardly appears to be one type of fabric. With this piece, it enabled the whole thing to look soft and squishy (which it largely is), while performing the illusion of standing up on its own. There is something curious and provoking about things which appear to defy gravity, which in turn I feel is pertinent to drag performance. I'd like to further explore the medium of pattern cutting as a vehicle for optical illusion in costume.
Reflecting on what didn't go right with the project, my first attempt at the bulbous sleeve was less than successful. I had been trying to avoid using padding / wadding in the construction of garments, as I feel it diminishes the overall look. Having failed to get the spheres to stand up on their own, I did resort to using wadding, and I really disliked the results. This did at least confirm that bypassing the use of padding in favour of engineered pattern pieces was, for me, the best way forward. Conversely, the padded 'snake' worked really well. This was an element that wasn't part of the main construction of the garment, instead being something that was added on afterwards. My main conclusion from this was that padding could be used, but not in isolation.
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