OCA Art Blog

The image above is a piece from Lachapelle’s ‘Disaster Series’ done for Vogue Italia in 2005. Chromogenic print, 39 1/2 x 59 1/2 inches, 100.3 x 151.1 cm, 

Silhouette: It’s a very draped silhouette, with not much of a shape around the body. The cut of the garment doesn’t show off the models figure that much, its quite flowy.

Volume: The fabric seems quite thin and loose and flowy, creating not a lot of volume around the body, the thing thats seems to be creating more volume is the wind like effect that’s blowing her dress.

Drape: Lightweight fabric cause clothing to drape.

Movement: The model is seemingly walking towards the camera with her suitcase, searching for something. Showing movement.

Colour: There isn’t a lot of colour, the dress is a solid white colour which in some ways creates more impact, as all her accessories are also white

Print/Pattern: There is no print of pattern on the fabric.

Burberry is a luxury designer brand that uses a lot of pattern in their pieces. The tartan pattern is used a lot in Burberry clothing, and the beige tartan print is used very often in their signature clothing.

Burberry’s signature pattern is a pattern that indeed can be used by other brands and other companies, however it had become such a signature stable for Burberry clothing that that’ll be the first thing a customer would think of if they were to see that pattern for the most part. It is also a pattern that is very versatile, and as you can see it can also be used to fashion accessories, as well as household items and even umbrellas.

Mary Katrantzou is a fashion and textile designer who takes placement print to an extreme level. By using digital print technology, she designs the garment shape and cut simultaneously with the print design, to achieve unique compositions on the body, quite often fused with string optical effects. Digital print technology allows photo-realistic images to be printed directly onto textile substrates in millions of colours using a CMYK print process.

What do you make of the article’s reference to ‘the room on the woman’ and ‘the woman in the room’?

The term ‘the room on the woman’ is referring to the fact that Mary Katrantzou truly brought interior-exterior decoration. Katrantzou imagined the woman as a connoisseur, surrounded by objects of beauty like Fabergé eggs, Meissen porcelain, cloisonné enamel, and Ming vases. The term refers to the fact that she brought interior decoration and these beautiful objects onto the model. ‘The woman in the room’ could be referring to the fact that it seems more as if the woman is surrounded by the interior decor. as she’s wearing the clothing and isn’t actually embodying it. https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2011-ready-to-wear/mary-katrantzou

Mary Katrantzou is a London-based designer bursted into the scene in 2008 with her prints that were, as Vogue put it, “almost beyond imaginable limits.” She has received multiple prizes from the British Fashion Awards—and collaborations with Topshop, Current/Elliott, Adidas, and Lesage, among others, have been lavished upon her. https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/designer/mary-katrantzou

Silhouette:

The silhouette of a garment is not only determined by how a garment is cut, but also by the softness and fluidity of the textile used. The silhouette is the overall shape of a garment that determines the outline of the form.

Volume:

Closely associated with silhouette, volume addresses the space around the body created by the garment. Volume is created through weight and thickness of a textile itself. Heavier fabrics require room to fold and drape and can easily produce bulkier volumes as they stand away from the body. Lighter fabrics can produce more subtle, flatter volumes, or be layered to build pronounced volumes focused on certain parts of the garment.

Drape and Movement:

Drape is the way in which a fabric or garment hangs, and is influences by the structure and weight of the fabric. Drape is applied by using excess fabric to build folds, gathers and pleats e.g. wedding dresses can have a lot of excess fabric to drape, long sundresses can be draped.

The quality of a drape textile is determined by its softness, rigidity, and weight. A fabric that is said to drape well is usually fluid, soft, and with a rounded handle. The drape of a textile allows it to be manipulated on the body in the process of garment design, in a sculptural manner.

In Balenciaga’s coat of the 1950s, tumbling soft folds down the sleeve and across the shoulder create a luxurious statement of abundance of fabric and an elegant silhouette. Garments with draped elements like this appear effortless, but in fact require a lot of skill in their construction to retain fluidity and to reduce any sense of bulkiness.

Texture:

Texture is about providing a visual and tactile surface quality to garments. Examples of texture fabrics are, tweed, honeycomb, matelassé, cord, velvet, and seersucker. Texture can be determined by the fibres used, the design of the yarns in the fabric, the techniques used to create the textile, and the finishes applied to the surface of the textile. Finishing processes (brushing, laminating, foiling, pressing, felting) can alter and enhance the surface and tactile quality of a textile, and can affect a fabric’s quality of drape.

Colour:

Colour is the first quality that provokes a response from most people when viewing a garment. Colour in textiles is an extremely important consideration and can be guided by the designer’s personal choice, themes and inspiration, design trends, fashion trends and can even be directed by trend prediction companies years in advance of being sold in stores.

In fashion colour palettes are created to guide the colour use across a collection. Some designers use colour as the strong point of focus in their collections, whilst others purposely avoid extensive colour palettes and ver towards monochromatic solutions.

Zandra Rhodes uses both colour and pattern to create her signature vibrant designs. However, fashion designer Gareth Pugh has built his signature design statement on collection of monochrome sculptural garments.

Colour is an interesting quality within the fashion production cycle as it can be added at different points within the production time frame. It can be added at the fibre production stage; it can be added in the production of yarn; it can be composed or added at the textile creation stage; or it can be added at the very last minute after garment has been constructed.

Sarah Moon captures the way Japanese designer Issey Miyake works with colour. His garments are often made in solid colours, to show off the crisp, defined textures, leaving the wearer to piece them together in blocks to form graphic outfits.

Pattern and Print:

Following on from colour, pattern, and print are highly sought after by fashion designers. Textiles can be created in all-over repeat patterns or can be designed as placements prints so that motifs appear in predetermined positions on a garment.

In addition to print design, embellishment processes- embroidery, beading, needle-punch, etc. – can be applied to textile surfaces to add motifs, pattern, and texture.

Chanel are famous for their tactile woven tweed fabrics, developed every season in collaboration with woven textile manufacturers. They often explore new fibres and new yarn design and composition to update and reinvigorate the traditional tweed, emphasising its sumptuous texture.

In the Autumn 2013 ready-to-wear collection the fabrics defied comprehension, anything that looked woven very well could’ve been an artful web of embroidery, like the explosions of monochrome flowers toward the end of the show.

Another well known item by Chanel is the infamous two-piece tweed suit that was made in the 1920’s and is still a famous piece today. The classic Chanel suit was made by millions of international fashion figures, like Princess Diana, Jackie Kennedy, and become a representation of the liberated women. https://www.crfashionbook.com/fashion/a26551426/history-of-chanel-tweed-suit/

The fabric was not only inspired by menswear, but also by a man. Chanel borrowed sportswear from her “beau” and realised that the comfortable supple fabric had a very sophisticated quality and starting designing garments around it. The tweed trend spread like wildfire, and quickly popular throughout the couture houses of Paris. In the 1930’s Coco Chanel started combing it with wool, cotton, silk, and even cellophane to give a more high-fashion and light-weight style. Karl Lagerfeld, still uses tweed throughout the brand, just as Coco Chanel would’ve wanted. https://www.elle.com/fashion/news/a15402/the-story-of-chanels-tweed/

Japanese designer Issey Miyake is particularly famous for his use of technology in textile creation. His Pleats Please line uses a heat-set pleating technique to create very finely pleated surfaces; giving his garments dynamic and dramatic texture and form.

He broke the boundaries between East and West and pursued “the body, the fabric covering it and a comfortable relationship between the two” as a fundamental concept, which was both shocking and resonating with people. https://www.isseymiyake.com/en/brands/isseymiyake

In 1994 and 1999, Miyake turned over design of the men’s and women’s collections, to his associate, Naoki Takizawa, so that he could return to research full-time. In 2007, Takizawa opened his own brand supported by the Issey Miyake Group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issey_Miyake

Richard Avedon‘s iconic imagery captures the movement of textiles, garments, and models in striking poses. You can feel the drape and weight of the textile used to create the garments. It’s generally difficult to represent the kinetic energy present in garments through still photography, but Avedon’s images seek both present and add to this dynamic.

Avendon seems to do a lot of his photography in black and white, which can come across are more dramatic or sinister, however with the way he gets his models to pose for the clothing the images almost seems warm, and freeing. He tries to show off the silhouette and drape style of the garments by getting his models to move around and pose in unique positions that shows the clothes off in an unusual yet captivating way.

Irving Penn was one of the twentieth century’s great photographers, known for his captivating images and masterful printmaking. He was known as one of Vogue magazine’s top photographers for more than sixty years. Penn was an intensely private man who avoided the limelight and pursued his work with quiet and relentless dedication. https://irvingpenn.org/biography

Many of Penn’s photography seems to be done in black and white, which seems to almost bring more drama and more of a statement to the pieces. His images have a lot of attitude, and bring a new level of fierce attitude to this otherwise elegant, and classy pieces. The images being in black and white means you can’t see much texture, or any colour, but because of the silhouette of the pieces and the way they’ve been made the shape on their own makes a statement.

Mario Testino is widely known as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers of our time. His photographs have been published internationally in many famous magazines such as, Vogue, V Magazine, and Vanity Fair. He has contributed to the success of many leading fashion and beauty houses, creating dazzling symbolic images. https://www.mariotestino.com/biography/

In Mario Testino’s work you can that he likes to show off the clothing, and use it at many different potentials. For monochromatic looks he tries to have the background the same colour or in complimentary colours, so the clothes almost blend into the background but still shows off the texture of it. He likes his looks to be extravagant and to stand out, the makeup will stand out, the clothing will, and the image will capture it so perfectly, and be instantly gravitated towards it.

Terry Richardson is a fashion and portrait photographer, who has worked with magazines such as Rolling Stones, Vogue, Vanity Fair etc. as well as has worked with many brands like Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, etc. He has been accused of sexual assault and exploitation, by multiple models during fashion shoots, and is now under investigation by the New York City Police Department’s Special Victim’s Squad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Richardson

Looking at Terry Richardson’s work you can see that he seems to do more expressive pieces, where the models can really be themselves and be a bit more explicit. His family pieces seem to be all again a white backdrop, as to not take away any attention from the model who should be the centre of attention. In his photos the garments seem to be more of a second photo, as the models are bringing so much personality, the garments almost fade away, and aren’t as important as the photo/look as a whole.

Sarah Moon, originally known, as Marielle Warin, is a French photographer and a member of the HonFRPS (Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain). Sarah Moon started off as a model ,and become a fashion photographer in the 1970’s, but since 1985, she has concentrated on gallery and film work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Moon

Sarah Moon’s photography is very interesting and different to other photographers. She seems to add a sort of blur effect onto a lot of her images, which makes the seem quite mysterious and unique. She seems to add a lot of drama and intrigue to the clothing, and shows off each piece very simplistically. Even though she hasn’t put her models in any dramatic poses, she is still able to show off the silhouette of the clothes, and their style by just capturing in her high-fashion style.

David Lachapelle’s style is hyper-saturated, theatrical, surrealistic and a combination of art history and contemporary pop culture, which isn’t everyone’s ‘cup of tea’. He has been widely criticised for being too commercial, offensively provocative and grotesque. However, he is still an essential figure in photography, and greatly successful having worked with some of the biggest names in both the fashion and entertainment industry. https://www.forbes.com/sites/yjeanmundelsalle/2014/09/19/david-lachapelle-from-fashion-photography-to-fine-art/#4b1b357d2023

David Lachapelle really bring fashion photography to another level, with the exotic ways he chooses to capture his models and clothing garments. As seen below, you can see that all of the pieces stand out and make their own statement in completely different ways, and bring so much character. In his Disaster Series (Fig.2.), he both seems to bring awareness to the destruction and damage in the work, as well as showing off the pure elegance of the models and their well draped clothing.

Textiles in relation to the body come from many forms, from fashion t part and somewhere in between. The tactile, visual, drape, handle, protective and durable qualities of textiles all lend themselves to expression and to wearing.

The overriding concerns of producing garments are aesthetics, the functional qualities of the textiles, cost, production possibilities, and ethical and sustainability concerns.

1. Aesthetic considerations are predominantly the look and feel and how the materials can be manipulated to become wearable and functional in their intended contexts e.g. evening wear, sportswear, nightwear. Aesthetic qualities are more apparent at first then the functional qualities.
2. Functional considerations centre on comfort, durability, and protection, especially in clothing for more extreme uses or environments e.g. skiwear, construction work wear, wilderness trekking wear, sportswear. Individual judgement is less significant here; a garment is either appropriate for its intended function or not.

A textile’s qualities influence the garment it becomes- its silhouette, drape, volume, movement, opacity, an transparency, colour and mood, pattern, decoration, and texture- to a point where it’s almost impossible to distinguish one from the other.