The biggest difference that I noticed in between John Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen was their attitudes towards their work. Gaultier seemed to take everything he did with plenty of humor. On the other hand, McQueen had humor, but in a “fuck the system” sort of way. For example, his bumster pants very much go against the status quo. I think I relate to both of them, in that I believe humor is incredibly important in art, but I also enjoy questioning pre-existing systems. I think McQueen’s works are a bit more sculptural while Gaultier’s are a bit more everyday. I think I would lean towards making things that are a bit more everyday, as I love spreading ideas and making them accessible.
I felt that the piece on McQueen was especially interesting because I hadn’t seen any interviews with him. I was surprised with many of his answers to the interviewer’s questions and how little confidence he seemed to have about himself. I find McQueen’s fashion to be so empowering that it shocks me that the designer could have such little faith in himself. I think seeing him speak also highlighted some of his emotional issues, in that he shared that he doesn’t love fashion and he hadn’t felt like he had done his best work at that point.
As far as actual process of each designer goes, I felt that I related more closely to the process of Gaultier. While McQueen was enough of a genius to design his collections in a day, I like to allow ideas to churn in my head for a bit longer. This allows for expansion on concepts and delving into other similar ideas. Unlike Gaultier, I don’t think that travel will be supremely important to my work. I am largely inspired by combining and mixing up aspects of culture that is very accessible, i.e. pop culture. While I know this might carry me away from the themse Gaultier explores in his work, I feel comfortable indirectly exploring the themes of gender and sexuality by playing with the lines that Gaultier and other designers have already blurred for me.
My three textile manipulations from last week can be seen here
My three squares for today:
This is a messy iteration on the concept found here. I was largely playing with different stitches , lengths widths, and tension settings on the sewing machine just to see what would happen. It provided a somewhat interesting texture to the textile manipulation, but to be beautiful it would likely need to be consistent. I did like the suggestion of cleanly stitching the edges of the square to provide a frame, and if I used a muslin colored thread it would appear much neater.
The idea of multiple layers of embroidered fabric reminded me of the excessive glamorousness of edible glitter. Much like edible glitter, excessive decoration can make anything better, in my opinion.
This is a windmill concept, found here. It consists of four squares, folded into triangles and then sewn into this interesting self-supporting opening. I felt that this was the neatest of my six manipulations and I could see it easily being used to add an illusionistic window into garments.
The central rectangle reminded me visually of my watch, and the four extending shapes actually gave me an idea for a geometric watch/bracelet design that could be fun to explore with fabric.
This started as an experiment in fabric gathering. There are two layers of gathered fabric, which I have sewn into circles, one on top of the other. I have now learned that this would be more effective if done with a wide zig-zag stitch. I also stuggled with sewing them down onto the base fabric, and I’m not sure how I would go about resolving that. Again, with a muslin colored thread this manipulation would have been substantially neater.
Visually, this reminded me of a flower, which is an essential ingredient in many perfumes, and a heart note in my perfume. While I generally dislike florals, I enjoy them when they are used lightly to compliment another note, or as a heart note.
These are my six manipulations together.
