Practising drawing..

I've not drawn anything in a while so thought I'd have a bit of practice! At some point soon I will need to draw at least six to go in the trend book, so I really want to try and develop my drawing and be able to draw certain poses rather than just straight standing. The area's that I'd say need improving with this illustration are the legs. I find this part the hardest, as I don't think they're long enough and the shape isn't quite right for the position she is in. Also the arms haven't got enough definition in, as like the legs I'm not sure the shape I'm aiming for. I think I need to have a more in depth look at the Peclers fashion illustrations in their trend books and try and use those as a bit of a guide, and study the shapes of the arms and legs in different poses, although I don't want these to be too much of an influence as I really want to try and develop my own style.

Layout Ideas

Colour Palette / Styling pages 

Accessories / Trend Inspiration

Here are a few ideas for page layouts. From looking at the various trend books online and in the libary, simplistic and not too clutered seems to be the key. Picking out distinct relevant images that link within the story and colours of the page. I want to incorporate boxed images, and images without a textbox and place them either in front or behind each image to add variety to the book and more appealing to the eye, however keeping it clean and simple. I want to use both a lime green - similar to this but more yellowey!!and a mustardy / beige colour throughout the book for each title, and a clear typewriter style font.

Alexa Chung..My Muse

Alexa Chung - Fashion Style Advice (Blog)

I love Alexa Chung's style. Her tomboyish yet feminine style makes her one of the most inspired trendsetters around. She has an effortless vibe to her style, and accomplishes that by mixing items that you would normally not pair together, whether it's colours, materials, sizes or patterns. It seems as if she just throws something on and it looks amazing. 

Alexa came to the attention of the fashion press for her distinctive, quirky style. She frequently appears on Best Dressed Lists, in fashion magazines and on the front row of fashion shows. She socialises with many well-known faces but has said the idea of lots of celebrity friends is "so cheesy". She has dismissed the notion of being an It girl, saying “there’s not much to being an It girl. It’s really quite a depressing title to hold.

WHO! WHAT! WHY!

• What type of person am I aiming at? Someone with a similar view to life as Alexa. Someone who doesn't necessarily wants to follow the trends and fit in, spending ages deciding what to wear and whether it goes together. Someone who is confident, with a more free approach to fashion and life..Student or young working adult in the early height of their career!
• Is this person male or female? Female
• How old is this person? Young Adult 20-25
• What size range do they fit in? 8 - 12
• How much do they want to send on clothes? Varies between highstreet prices and designer (£35 - £150)
• Are they looking for highstreet or catwalk couture? Happy to wear a mixture
• What do they do for a job? Currently in the early stages of a career trying to prove themselves working within the arts and events industry
• Holiday? Somewhere with plenty of culture and interesting sites and smells! happy to try new things and eat weird stuff!
• Magazines / Newspapers?? Interior design / fashion magazines, and likes to be up to date on current world events and affairs
• TV Programs? Real life documentaries, guilty pleasure..Britains next top model 
• Likes? Recycled clothing / restoring furniture. Dislikes? Primark
• Motivates? Creativity

Possible retail shop I aiming for...ZARA 

Preparing for In Design

I've started to gather images relating to my themes ready to upload to the trend book template on in design. So far, I have a folders with several images for each, however I'm finding it difficult especially researching on-line. I really need to think about how I'm going to create my own images for each theme.. there are so many images on the internet, books similar trend styles in magazines but I feel this is not the aim of the project to move images from different sources to our trend book. Ah!!Need to think how I'm gather more of my own images!! Similar to the street style photography I took.

Here are some images that I really like and are relevant to my both my ethical and ethnic themes, each which I have found from various blogs.

ETHICAL

Sustainable Design 

Hairy Sock - Urbanoutfitters blog

EGYPTIAN INSPIRED

Looking at Colour, Print and Texture

Keith Haring by Nicholas Kirkwood Collection

Painted Face Album Cover 

Trankillement photography

My Gold Mask Album Cover - Urbanoutfitters/blog

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

Amazing :)

INITIAL IDEAS

The three topics - Ethical, Ethnic, Street. From brainstorming ideas, I've picked out the more solid themes I think I can work with and create a trend from that is inventive and uniqiue from eachother. Below are my theme ideas :

Ethical - Sustainable Architecture & Design
Ethnic - Egyptian culture

Street - Street Art / Urban decay

ETHICAL

For my ethical theme, I want to look at sustainable design and architecture - re-inventing design and fashion inspired by sustainable sources. I've started researching by looking at 'Green Architecture' by James Wines, Ecouterre and Treehugger.com to find unique eco design. Using this topic, I hope to be further inspired by modern day sustainable buildings and architecture and the colours involved to create an original futuristic trend style.

Below are a few images I've found as starting points, specifically looking at space and shape :

Green Architecture By James Wines

Inhabitat.com

The above images are a examples of sustainable architecture that I will be looking at for inspiration to work from. As stated above, space and shape will be key influences within the trend that I will look at. Below is an example of how architecture has been inspired within fashion :

Stepinsidedesign.com

Does Fashion meet design or design meet fashion ? Ivforfashion.wordpress.com

Ivforfashion.wordpress.com

Looking at various different types of architecture and design, specially made from sustainable sources, I have found these images of unusual futuristic looking shoes, especially the image above. Both inspired by modern day innovative eco friendly architecture and design. The shapes of both shoes are very different but help me start to think about how I could look for and develop shapes in a similar way to design a trend from.

ETHNIC


I've started by looking into egyptian design from jewelery to interiors. I've recently come back from Egypt and I think the style and culture is something where I can definitely see where a trend can be inspired from which is unique and not like anything that has been a recurring trend. Just by beginning to look at the below images, there is an unlimited amount of vibrant colour, texture and pattern to design and create a trend from.

Image from the book - Treasures of Tutankhamun

Image from the book - Treasures of Tutankhamun

Coloured hills at an Egyptian Market - Flikr.com



Eyptian Colours - Pavilion Tone - Flikr.com





Egyptian Mandala - Flikr.com



Medieval style Egyptian sock - flikr.com



Egyptian Sekhem Colour - Book


STREET 

Artwork by Italian artist Blu in Zaragoza, Spain

My first thought for street was to look into street art and how I could interpret street art to design a fashion trend from. I've started looking into street artists such as Blu, Banksy, Frank Shepard Fairey and JR.

'Street art is defined as art that is created in public places and can take many forms. It can take many forms and encompasses a wide range of disciplines such as painting, sculpture, posters, street performances and stencilled pictures' - Wikipedia'.

I want to look at how street artists have responded to their environment and added to it and recreated elements of it to produce new art.

Blu's giant wall



Banksy





Banksy





JR's work





This is an image I found on 'Fashion Scout', which is from David Longshaw's SS 11 collection. I really like this image on the dress and what its showing - a girl smoking in front of what looks like an urban environment and how the image of the face has been brought forward. The inspriation behind his collection are from his skills in writing to create short quirky stories to then illustrate from. 

Cuba Gallery : Urban lightroom - Flikr.com

  

416152927 : Bilal040786 - Flikr.com

I love these images. I think both are really striking and have inspired another way I could intreprete 'street art', to not only look at street art in a grafitti sense but to look at street visuals and the way the urban environment really is. 


From speaking with Sarah James, this would broaden my original theme idea and have more of a sophisticated approach to it - how the environment has developed, become distressed, degraded in visually fascinating ways.

Below are a few images using the same concept from my own photography taken at a skate park in Bournemouth :







Brainstorming..

Throughout my first year on FDA Fashion I have found the trend books, especially Peclers to be a really useful research source to gain ideas from and guidance with seeing how imergery and colour palettes link together and tell each story, so I'm really excited about making one of my own, in my own style!
In order to begin researching, I have firstly thought of different ideas for each theme - Ethical, Ethnic, and Street to have a starting point to then work from. Each theme inniatially I have found to be a challenge to be 'innovative', especially street, however I have begun by brainstorming!..