End of Year Exhibition

These are a selection of images of the work on display, if you'd like to see more please click HERE

I imagine there's plenty of us art teachers out there at the moment who've just endured the craziness that is the end of May/beginning of June marking, moderators and end of year exhibitions! My craziness is all over now, phew! So I thought I'd share some of the incredible work my students have created this year. To give it a bit of context, this year I have been on a one year maternity cover as curriculum manager for Textiles. I feel extremely lucky to have spent a year only teaching Textiles and to have solely taught our A2 students. It has been an absolute pleasure and I feel very proud of what my students have achieved.  As a newbie to the college I also thought why not challenge myself and so in collaboration with my students put on the first ever Fashion Show as part of the exhibition! It was brilliant fun and a great way to showcase the work in an appropirate context. It was also a lovely activity to end on with the students as it was a real celebration. You can have a look at some of their wonderful work in the video below... 

Hope you've enjoyed having a look at the work and if you are in the area it's open to the public till 19th June - you can find details of the exhibition, here and see a selection of work from the whole art department, here. 

- Claire ❤

Review: Graduate Fashion Week, My Favourites

I love this time of year, time to visit all of the graduate shows with my students and get them excited and inspired about their future prospects! Yesterday I went to Graduate Fashion Week, which has relocated this year to the Truman Brewery (which I loved! a much more exciting venue) to check out this years fresh young talent and to see the International Catwalk Competition catwalk show. I had a brilliant time and these were some of my favourites from the show...

anna neulinger

Keziah Newlove - her blog has great progress shots

Laura Baker - loved her illustrations

Ainslie Mackie - she had a beautiful portfolio 

Nicci James

Suzanne Nicolson 

Chloe Woodgate

I guess I have a bit of a thing for knitwear! 

- Claire ❤

Exhibition: The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to Catwalk

Ever since the Barbican announced 'The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to Catwalk' I've been excited! Last Saturday I finally got the chance to check out the exhibition and it did not disappoint. If you've still got a chance to squeeze another trip in before the end of the summer term you should definitely make this it! It's open till August 25th 2014. Also, one of the absolute highlights is that you're allowed to take photographs in the exhibition! (as long as you don't use the flash) There's nothing worse than students being unable to reference something properly because they can't find an image of it post-visit!

One of the key things I liked about the exhibition was that whilst walking around it I kept coming across ways in which you could extend the visit into the classroom, both before and after. I don't know about you but one of the things I often find tricky is making sure that a visit is really valuable to the students and that it doesn't become a 'day out', which is enjoyable at the time but forgotten about once you're back in the classroom or a token page or two in the sketchbook that doesn't really link to their project! I've put together a few suggestions of activities I would do if I took my students - there's some interesting topics, particularly in a wider context and gives the opportunity to discuss some more controversial topics which you might not normally get the chance to discuss in the Textiles classroom! 

Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation 

Gaultier's early work reflects the experiences he was having transforming from a child with a 'different' sexual identity into an adult who could choose his own. His work is often hypersexulised and exagerates the norms of masculine and feminine creating androgynous looks. You could also discuss his 'A Wardrobe for Two' collection (1985) for which he looked at masculine, feminine, androgynous and alternative conventions. Brilliant to get a bit of E&D into the trip and/or classroom discussions. 

Cultures and Countercultures

Punk, androgyny, nautical, fetish, tailoring and his many muses there's an array of things that you could pick out and focus on depending on what's relevant to your class. I loved the punk stuff, especially the yellow tartan...

Music, Film and Theatre

It's great to be able to highlight to students a wider-context in which more extravagant Fashion garments can be worn and Jean Paul Gaultier is a great example of this! There's some incredible pieces on show including garments from Madonna's Blonde Ambition Tour, Kylie Minogue videos, a piece inspired by David Bowie and a collection inspired by Amy Winehouse. I reckon a nice fun starter activity for the lessons building up to the trip would be to watch a few music videos. There's also a section in the exhibition on the infamous, Euro Trash, but perhaps that's best discussed with the older year groups only!

The App

When I saw the exhibition had it's own app I was keen to check it out. I love the idea of having an app alongside an exhibition, however in my experience it's always been a frustrating affair and unfortunately this one was no exception. I loaded it up before the exhibition so I could check it out what was on there; some video clips, written information and a camera function to upload and hashtag photos from the exhibition (I think, I never got this function to work). There was also some general info about opening times and ticket prices. 

When I got the exhibition I saw the symbol for the app by a garment so I tried to load it up and that's when the problems started, crash/restart/crash/restart, repeat! I finally got it to work but I couldn't see a clear correlation between what I was looking at and what I was meant to look at on the app. I also found at various points in the exhibition it stated things like 'go to the app to hear clips from various muses' unless I was missing something, there was just one! So there was a lot of hype going on as well. I didn't even get half way round before I gave up using it! Also be prepared to watch the same intro video a lot as it pops up everytime you open the app (which is a lot when it keeps crashing!). 

Obviously if you get this working this could be a fun way to make the exhibition a little more interactive for your students both during the exhibition and as a follow up! The exhibition has only been open for a few weeks so hopefully they'll be some bug fixes to sort the app out!

Go visit! 
Anyway it's a brilliant exhibition and well worth a visit, if your still not convinced here's the details and a video of Jean Paul Gaultier himself discussing the exhibition...

What: The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to Catwalk
When: now - till August 25th 2014
Where: The Barbican, London
Price: £14.50 (general) £9 (student) £7.50 (school groups and they'll give you a complimentary ticket to use before your visit if needed) 

Enjoy!
- Claire  ❤

3W: Dolce & Gabbana F/W 2014

who: Dolce & Gabbana
what: Their F/W 2014 collection
why: One of the AQA Textile exam themes this year is 'Mosaics' so I was pretty excited to come across this collection. The detail is incredible!  They used the Cathedral of Monreale as a starting point so I took it as an opportunity to encourage my students to visit Westminster Cathedral and take inspiration from the mosaics there as their starting point.

Mosaic Art Now review // Vogue //  buy yourself something from the collection (if you somehow have extreme amounts of £££ spare)

3W: Hiroko Kubota

who: Hiroko Kubota

what: embroidery 

why: when these popped up on my pinterest feed I almost squealed with delight! They are simply adorable! 'Pocket Cats' are a series of embroideries created by Japanese embroiderer Hiroko Kubota which were originally created due to her son's love for internet cats and have since gone somewhat viral! If only I had a spare £200 (approx. going rate via etsy) it could be my smart shirt for work! 

Hiroko Kubota // Flickr // Blog 

Review/Exhibition: Kaffe Fassett

Last Wednesday I attend the Teachers Evening at The Fashion and Textiles museum 'The Future of Knitwear'. The evening was in conjunction with the current Kaffe Fassett exhibition and it was a brilliant evening! I was hesitant about attending at first because, to be honest, I'm pretty cheap and I didn't like the idea of forking out £12 (£13 after the booking fee!) to go to an event! As our regular readers will know we are always on the lookout for free events, it's not always because we're tight but we, like many others I'm sure, don't work in places that can constantly reimburse you for every event you choose to attend, it's just not viable. 

I made an exception for this one because I am a knitter! I was planning to visit the exhibition anyway so I figured the extra cost wasn't too bad as it included a gallery tour and two talks; one by Belinda Boaden and Wendy Baker of True Brit Knits and the other by Sandy Black. Sandy Black discussed her new book Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft which looks at the history of knitting from a development point of view - the images shown during the talk were interesting and it looks like a fascinating book. The wonderful ladies behind True Brit Knits talked about their background in knit and about their company True Brit Knits who aim to create knitwear patterns from a fashion point of view. They have a regular feature on their blog 'Monday Moods' which is a wonderful resource for students of beautiful mood boards - I can't wait to show my students these to get them re thinking what ought to be included in a mood board. 

It was well worth it! Both talks were really engaging and I came away feeling inspired and with a really urge to knit (which I do regularly anyway but I feel inspired about creating some new stuff!). The only slight downside was that due to the large turnout they didn't conduct a formal tour, but the museum staff were on hand if you did have any questions. The exhibition itself is wonderful. The amount of colour and pattern on display all at once is incredible - I'm not sure my photographs do it justice so if you can get along to visit it, do! They even had the first cardigan Kaffe Fassett ever knitted on display! It was a truly wonderful exhibition. 

The exhibition is on till June 29th and it's £8 entrance (£5.50 concessions), don't be caught out like I have been before though, the museum is shut on Sundays and Mondays. I really do recommend the teachers evenings if it's for a designer or technique your passionate about! The next teachers evening is in conjunction with the upcoming Zandra Rhodes exhibition. Zandra Rhodes founded the Fashion and Textiles Museum and the exhibition is celebrating her work and the fact that the museum is celebrating it's 10th year! The talk sounds cool as you get special access to the design studio and archive and their going to be discussing how the digital archive can be used with schools/colleges. You can book tickets, HERE. 

- Claire ❤

3W: Pierre Debusschere

who: Pierre Debusschere

what: photography, video and animated gif

why: we're currently delivering an animation project to our students and are constantly coming across more and more artists who are revlountionising the use of animated gifs to create stunning moving images.  We're overwhelmed with the incredible beauty of these by Pierre Debusschere. He specialises in photography and video in the fashion industry and his portfolio is a delight to view. 

Pierre Debusschere // tumblr // dazed digital feature

lesson idea: paper dress

The last few weeks have been crammed full of inspiring activities in my A Level lessons to get my students hooked and engaged with their new project - the exam unit! On Monday I set my AS Textiles students the challenge of creating a paper dress. The exam theme is 'Covert and Obscured' and my students been researching the work of fashion designers and artists who use recycled materials to create garments and accessories, often creating pieces so beautiful that the recycled materials used are almost unrecognisable. To begin the lesson we looked at the work of designer Gary Harvey alongside the 'Junk Fashion Show' put together by fashion students from Krakow's school of Art and Fashion design.  

I then gave the students a pile of newspapers and they looked to origami, simple folding techniques and experimenting with heat transfer onto paper to create a series of small experiments individually. We stopped intermittently to discuss processes that were working well and began planning what could be created to construct the dress. The students then worked together to dress the mannequin using staples and tape to hold the experiments together. I think the finished result is beautiful and it showed them that an artistic fashion piece can be made quickly and with limited materials, whilst encouraging them to explore the maximum potential of those materials! 

I love that there is plenty of scope to use this approach to add deeper meaning in a range of different directions depending on your choice of contextual link. You could look back to the 1960s when the paper dress was a desirable disposable fashion pieces, discuss pieces that make a social comment like Gary Harvey's or look at contemporary fashion which uses orgami as inspiration, blogger Ajurette Maga has put together a wonderful two part blog post with a brilliant collection of designers (part 1 and part 2) for this! 

As always let us know if you have a go at this after reading or get in touch and share if you've done a similar project!

- Claire ❤

3W: Elizabeth Lecourt

who: Elizabeth Lecourt

what: dresses made from maps aka Les robes geographiques

why: we love a good map! Or perhaps it's more that we love anything art-related that uses maps, perhaps they are what we call the ultimate collage material. Anyway, Elizabeth Lecourt constructs these beautiful garments from beautiful maps and we think that her work is wonderful - we're also quite pleased she's a Londoner so we'll be keeping are eyes peeled for upcoming London exhibits! You should also check out her  her drawings and handkerchiefs quirky and also beautiful.

3W: Elizabeth Lau

who: Elizabeth Lau

what: Fashion/Knitwear 

why: because she released snaps of her A/W12 look book last week and we are in love with it! Check it out! How could you not be? Her designs are cute, stylish and perfectly capture Britishness. There's even something in the collection specifically for us teachers this gorgeous waistcoat dress. Although our eyes are on the dungaree dress above! Gorgeous! 

Elizabeth Lau // Blog

3W: Erin Petson

who: Erin Petson

what: art/illustration

why: because we love our mixed media! Her work is great to share with students as it shows how the boundaries between art, illustration,fashion and design are often blurred, her illustrations aren't just used in books and magazines but have been used in fashion collections, an animation and she regularly exhibits her artwork too (the V&A even have some of her drawings in their permanent collection!) Her website is definitely worth checking out, it's inspiring stuff! 

Erin Petson // Erin Petson Interview with Vogue Italia

3W: Kat Heyes

who: Kat Heyes

what: stylish and infinitely fashionable illustration

why: because her work is effortlessly stylish and having studied womenswear at Central St. Martins it's not a wonder why! Having studied under the tutelage of Howard Tangye, himself an established illustrator, her first illustration commission came from non other than Gucci. Alongside commissions from some of the top fashion houses Kat is also a talented photographer and writer having published a book on that other awesome love of ours, camping.  'The Happy Campers' which Heyes wrote with her sister in law Tessa Carr is published by Bloomsbury and is packed full of practical tips and inspirational ideas perfect for the impending summer, just don't forget your wellies!...❤

Kat Heyes// Agent

3W: Nora Fok

who: Nora Fok

what: knitted body adornments 

why: Nora's work is stunning and innovative yet simple and each piece in her archive is accompanied by an explanation or insight into the inspiration for the work, like the piece above 'bubble bath' which has a wonderful poem alongside it, here. The piece is also featured in a gorgeous online exhibition, 40:40, by the Crafts Council that celebrates 40 objects they've acquired over 40 years. 

Nora Fok // 40:40 

3W: Alexandra Verschuueren

who: Alexandra Verschuueren

what: fashion 

why: the final collection is gorgeous but we love the bits and pieces we've seen of illustrations, scrapbooks and sketchbooks too on trendland and it's great to show our students these bits too! 

Alexandra Verschuueren // dazed digital interview // trendland 

3W: Lianna Sheppard

who: Lianna Sheppard

what: fashion/design 'modu_gram

why: simple and almost math like and absolutely gorgeous photographs/videos of the collection - we adore it! 

Lianna Sheppard // her blog // her vimeo 

3W: André Lima

who: André Lima
what: geometric/origami inspired fashion collection
why: gorgeous collection and we love this images that trend de la creme have put together making links between origami and pieces from the collection!

André Lima // trend de la creme 

3W: Quentin Jones

who: Quentin Jones

what: mixed media illustration, film and installation with strong fashion influence 

why: we love her work! Perhaps the coolest thing we've ever come across and the more we search the more incredible things we find! Videos, illustrations, installations and more! There's lots of different approaches you can take to make Quentin's work inspiring and relevant to your projects (we used it as an initial idea starter and our students created an installation piece and animated gifs, pictures and gifs here) There's also a whole host of video work that can be used for starters/background inspiration like this one for Victoria Beckham's S/S 2012 collection...  

Quentin Jones // Video work // A day in the life (video interview)