Evaluation.

Throughout the practice unit I have gained a great deal of knowledge, experimenting through the inclusion of the live briefs, with the focus on innovation in my self initiated brief.

Beginning with the Bradford brief I found I needed to find a more experimental way of moving forward. I found that adding new and unknown media within my processes improved the way I thought about my samples and pushed me to plan and subtract elements of media or samples I believed simply filled in the gaps. Learning a lot from this I believe it assisted me in my main practice unit, in selecting & choosing what was important and what wasn’t needed.  I felt I communicated my research well visually through the media I used and had been expressed well in my sampling. As the concept was ‘Decay’, the media processes I use inevitably meant it will slowly disintegrate, falling apart, leaving just the shell of the knit. This is the impression I wanted to follow through on.

 I feel I have learnt substantial amounts in practice, running both briefs side by side, managing my time between researching, producing and developing both independently but collectively gaining substance. This is not to say that it has been relaxed, I have had several problems between them both, with prioritising my time and looking forward as to what was more in need of development. I feel I have communicated the ideas and research within my sketchbook, through drawing, images, contextual and artist research. This has supported my work enormously when it came to designing and making.  

I have presented my concept as “The Elegance in Overgrowth”. Using techniques and yarn to express the feel and look of the concept such as the Contour technique, using certain types of yarns to indicate this. Using this technique in a certain way so as the design seems to be consuming the body, additionally using colour in specific samples to express this notion.  Using the colour to imply it is consuming rather than the technique.

 I am pleased with the outcome of my first two looks. I found my first garment to be the major learning curve for me, rearranging and manipulating the design ideas due to the nature of the technique. Once this was more developed I found a way for it to work well with plain knit and beading, portraying my concept, with meticulous placement of techniques to make the garment a whole. I am still unsure as to how well the second two garments work together as a look. I feel that some adjustments will be needed once the collection is put together as a whole reviewing it as a whole, revising ideas as what can be done to have things working better together. Initially, I feel they possibly might be better suited on different tops and bottoms, but this is something I can work on and figure out as Unit X progresses.

 However, my third look, I feel, needs to be revisited, adjusted and reworked. I don’t feel that it fits in as well as I would have liked and needs to be vastly improved upon. Changing one of the main elements such as the technique used or colour of garment to develop it more, maybe a change in garment design, I feel that the sample as it is works well in its small proportion, the Viscose and Silk yarns I feel give it the drape and excess fabric I wanted. However the technique brought difficulties on a larger scale, that the collection could work better revisiting and designing a new look for the line up.

Stepping back from my work and looking at my collection of samples as a whole, I feel there is still vast room for more testing, improving and experimenting to be done within Unit X, re-editing garment designs to be more explanatory of my concept. Changing and adjusting seams and openings to make a bolder statement.