Industry Project

I joined this project half way through and this proved to be quite difficult at first, to integrate myself into a group and merge their ideas with mine.

The group were working for the designer Iris van Herpen, aiming to produce a collection and final garments for womenswear, Autumn/Winter 2015. I was given a brief overview of what the group had collectively achieved so far and all the plans that had been made to produce the rest of the work. I was explained that at the beginning of the project the group broke down the brand itself and discussed what the designer represented, meant to themselves individually and the designers branding techniques. They were then given quotes and from it decided which words were key and stood out to them. I didn’t actually get to see the quotes and so couldn’t totally form my own concept but had to work from what the group had already done. From the quote, the group had generated a mood board for the collection, from the idea of life, death and re-birth, and focused mainly on re-birth which then led onto ideas about butterflies and their life-cycle.

I did my own research of the brand and these were the key words that I found described the brand well: craftsmanship (her intricate designs are impressive and creative), innovative, modern, digital, beauty, regeneration, individuality. Van Herpen’s clothes aren’t made to be wearable, they are an art form, which links with the idea of nature and metamorphosis because nature is the greatest work of art.

The group decided that I would do the photoshoot for the brand. There wasn’t a garment to take pictures of. However, Van Herpen doesn’t have many campaigns so in the group we decided that I would give a flavour of what the collection would be from the samples made and create a campaign.
I created a concept board following everything I had learnt from researching the designer and from what the group had done so far. I looked at artist Ernesto Neto a contemporary visual artists who creates interactive installations and I looked into how I would capture this idea of rebirth.

In the photoshoot I wanted to create a human cocoon, make the model look as if she was inside a cocoon. I used several fabrics to give a natural feel to ‘the cocoon’ the model was in. I was successful in creating this effect. However, ideally I would have liked to have used materials that were more typical of the designer. (This was something that was pointed out during the presentation, which goes to show the knowledge other students have about fashion and designers and that they were engaged with the presentation.) Van Herpen doesn't use fabric and from my research I found out that this is because she feels limited by it and I too felt limited by the fabrics. If I had had more time I would have liked to collaborate with the designers to create a 3D-printed garment or a sample of a garment to have then photographed.

Presentation day was an interesting day to see other people’s work. Unfortunately, a bulk of the groups work was misplaced so some members of the group were unable to reveal the full potential that they had reached during the project.

Overall I think I integrated myself well into the project despite joining in at a peak time. I feel like the team could have communicated more in order to let each other become more clear of each other’s visions in that project.
 From this project I have realised that I would like to try out the design aspect of fashion more and hope to excel at this.