I have spent rather a lot of time thinking about different ways of translating my design work onto the body. Working with different scales within one outfit was an idea that I thought would balance out the multiple patterns that my garments are going to have. I also felt it would be good to have two garments that were more simple and two that were more of a statement so that fitted well with the scaling idea. Body suits have been in the back of my head for quite a while so those were what I settled on for the more understated items.
The movement of corals and other undersea foliage is a theme that I have tried to carry through my whole project so it was important for that to be present in the final outcome as well. I did a lot of research into current trends and found that some popular styles just now, which would fit in with this flowing idea, were wide leg trousers and circle skirts. I had originally settled on the skirt but changed my mind half way through the process as I felt the trousers would be more fitting.
My final, and really my main garment is a simple kimono. I have always been really interested in Japanese culture, a previous project of mine looked at the Japanese technique for mending broken ceramics – kintsukuroi. In Japan everything is reused and repurposed, with very little being thrown away. This recycling mentality is one that fits the ethos of my project quite well so that was kind of where the inspiration for the kimono came from.
I have never really done much in the way of fashion illustration, these were just quick sketches to get my ideas across to my seamstress. I also had absolutely no idea what I was doing with the measurements. They are not even all the same unit of measurement. Oops.
Marigold 