Extending my Arts Practice
To extend my art form of fashion, I have chosen to participate in the annual fashion show run by the school. I have decided to design and make a collection to contribute to this event. I have also chosen the theme of "Identity" to make the collection more interesting and to have a running theme across the whole collection. This is the plan to extend on my current main art form of fashion and textiles. However, to develop on a new art form, I have chosen music and I will create a soundtrack composition to go along with the collection and to be played alongside the collection in the school's fashion show. This will be my first time exhibiting my clothes at the school's annual fashion show so it is a completely new experience for me.
Usually if I make and design an outfit, it is always a one piece such as a dress. In order to extend my fashion and sewing skills more, I am planning on making a collection of two piece sets, so for example a top and a skirt as an outfit. It will be more complex to do as it requires making two distinct pieces rather than one. However, it will be a learning process and hopefully I can learn from any mistakes I make.
I also want my collection to be based on a theme so that I have a common factor running throughout each of the outfits that link to each other. I have chosen to do a theme of 'Identity', it is fluid, something that is constantly changing and I wanted to explore this through fashion. I will attempt to channel this theme through every outfit, so every outfit will be different, however I am also going to make the outfits either black or pink mainly to keep them looking linked in terms of their aesthetic.
I think by participating in the school's annual fashion show, I can exhibit the collection I am making in a larger scale compared to if I was to organise a fashion show event myself.
This will also be a new experience for me as I have modelled before at the school’s fashion show but never actually contributed my work into it but this time I will exhibit my own collection of six outfits and each outfit will consist of two pieces as I have mentioned before; for example a top and a skirt as an outfit.
To further extend my skills, I am also going to make a song to go with the collection which will be played in the fashion show during the showing of my walk. Music is the skill which I will be developing whilst I chose fashion and textiles to be the skill that I wish to extend. I will explain more on the musical aspect further down in this part.
I will design the collection for the school's fashion show first before then moving on to create the musical soundtrack to accompany the collection. The designs of the clothes will help me and influence me in the direction that I want the soundtrack to go in. I am doing it in this order of designing the collection prior to working on the soundtrack as the fashion and textiles aspect is my main chosen art form whilst I am extending on a new art form of music, which I do not have much experience on or knowledge about the subject either. The designs and making the collection, is something in which I have experience and more confidence in, so that will definitely assist me with extending and exploring on the musical side, whilst still learning and extending myself with the fashion and textiles side of this project.
Skills Development (Fashion & Textiles):
During the making process for the collection, I developed various old and new skills. For example, I have never attempted at incorporating an invisible zip in any of my clothes that I have made before. Until on my velvet top design. I sewed the zip once onto the top I made, and I was unsatisfied with the final result, so I unstitched it and went along to a sewing course to get taught the proper method. After going to the course, I was much more confident in sewing invisible zips and regular zips than I was before the course. This aided me a lot as all my garments featured zips so it definitely made a difference.
Another new skill I developed was how to do pleats. For this, I turned to a couple of youtube tutorials and taught myself off them at how to incorporate pleats into a garment. After watching a few videos and doing a couple tester pieces, I managed to successfully add pleats to not just one but two of my outfits, which I was really proud of.
An old skill I developed, was probably working on the sewing machine. I felt with more practice, I became much more confident at using it. I even learnt how to thread the bottom part of the sewing machine, which I did not know how to do before. And I also learnt how to rewind the bobbin through a course I attended.
The last important skill I feel that I have developed is designing. Designing is the part that I struggle with the most. I feel as if though I am better and much more confident at making outfits than I am at producing ideas, so this was a very important skill to work on. I feel that I produced quite original ideas for my collection, through looking at some fashion magazines for inspiration, and experimenting and constantly adapting the designs.
Extending my Art Form (Music):
To extend my art form further, I decided to merge my current art form of fashion, with a new art form that I have not done before; music. The plan was to create a soundtrack for my Fashion Show catwalk, in this way, I could incorporate my designing and sewing skills with musical skills, that I have never looked into or explored.
To produce this soundtrack, I teamed up with a music technician teacher who came to my school, called Mr Luckett, and we worked on producing the soundtrack for a couple of hours. To produce this soundtrack we used a music software which was similar to 'Garage Band', which I have used before, but it was a lot more extensive and there was a lot more tools available on the software we used. This music software was called 'Logic Pro X'.
Firstly, we looked at the outfits I had made as inspiration and also looked at several different songs and artists for inspiration. Such as the song '19' by Paul which incorporated a voice over from a film documentary at the start of the song and the voice got put onto a loop. This was to explore different ways of adding vocals to add more texture into the song.
Then we created a bass line which was percussion going on in the background, which we turned into a loop so it would last for a duration of 3 minutes, roughly like a song. Then we kept adding several different sounds and instruments as loops and quantised these loops so they would be in time with the rest of the music. This was mainly based on experimenting with different sounds and instruments and beats to see how everything would fit together. If the sounds would match, then we would drag it into the song and quantise these. We then repeated experimenting until we were happy with the song as a whole.
I felt that the song was quite repetitive so we decided to add vocals. We used vocal samples that we found through the Internet, mainly focusing on Sami and Flamenco music vocals. This is because my theme for the fashion show was 'Identity', and as I come from a dual heritage, Spain and Finland, we decided to include these two aspects in to develop on the idea of the theme. We used Flamenco vocals for the idea of my Spanish heritage, and this comes in half way. However, the original vocals did not fit in with the soundtrack, so we used a software called 'Melodyne' to move the notes into the correct pitch so it would sound and fit better with what we had already produced. We also did the same for the Sami music, which was for my Finnish side, and this music was quite high pitched so we moved it down an octave.
Overall, I am glad with how the song sounded in the end and I appreciate how much time and effort is required to make a song now. I think that the song compliments the outfits and vice versa, and that they both go hand in hand.
To listen to the final soundtrack, click the play button below!
Practioner I worked with:
Neil Luckett:
Biography:
Neil Luckett is a composer with a Fellowship from the London College of Music and MMus (dist), singer, guitarist with an L.G.S.M. in classical guitar, arranger and producer.
There are a number of albums of his own material.
Some of the artists and companies that he has worked with or for include:
tvfordogs, Phil Dodd, the ROH soloists and Sting, Vanessa Mae, So Solid, Lisa Scott Lee, Idiotboy, Yve Mendes, Laurie Latham, Kealer, Mavericks Film, Aerostorm, Tom Allalone, Haygarth, BBC, First Search, Butterfly Stitch, Dave Cumming (Akilo), Red Drapes, Mr President etc
His music is performed by a growing number of classical musicians and has been played on TV, radio and used in a number of short films. His orchestral pieces have been performed by the DSO and LCCO and the string quartets by the Aditi Quartet and the Elysian quartet.
He performs, both in Britain and abroad, with alternative rock band, tvfordogs and acoustic band Rabbit in the Blood.
He is a composer and musician across a wide range of genres and that is reflected in his varied catalogue. He is currently primarily active in classical composition but he is still working as a session musician, teacher, producer and performer with tvfordogs and Rabbit In The Blood.
Evidence of working with a practioner:
Evidence of progress:
Skills Development Plan:
| 1st June | Begin to design the collection of the clothing around the chosen theme of "Identity" for the school's fashion show. |
| 12th June | Begin to research into the different fabrics to use and start to purchase the different fabrics, threads and trimmings needed for the collection. Start on making the first outfit. |
| 18th June | Attending a course to work on how to sew an invisible zip to incorporate into some of the designs in the collection. After the course, I will finish the first complete outfit and begin on making the second outfit out of six in total. |
| 22nd June | Email and contact Mr Luckett over arranging for an initial session to work on a soundtrack and explore different ideas behind the soundtrack. |
| 25th June | Finish making the second outfit and begin and finish making completely the third outfit out of the six. This way, half of the outfits are physically made and all the designs are drawn out before having the first initial meeting with Mr Luckett to start to create the musical soundtrack. |
| 28th June | First initial meeting with Mr Luckett to start to create the music soundtrack. We looked at different stimulus and remits to influence the soundtrack, alongside focusing on the designs of the clothes and overall theme of "identity". I also looked at two main examples of how music has been used before in this context in a way that I wanted the direction of the soundtrack to move in, and this was the starting point of creating the soundtrack. |
| 30th June | Started and finished on making the fourth outfit which also was influenced with the initial session with Mr Luckett as looking at the different stimulus (such as looking at cultural references in music) influenced me to slightly change the original design. This is an example of how the music also influenced some of my designs of the collection. |
| 2nd July | Focusing on cultural references and specific themes (such as that of identity again) so that I could try to reflect it in the music. Also learning more on particular terminology before being able to work on actually producing the soundtrack, this was to have a better understanding on key words that would inevitably pop up and I would need to understand before exploring the computer software and physically being able to start producing music. |
| 5th July | Started working on the computer software; Logic X Pro. Experimented with how to use the software and learnt how to start to use it and what tools and what the software can offer in terms of making my soundtrack. |
| 9th July | Started and finished making the fifth complete outfit. |
| 11th July | Continued on making the soundtrack, by finishing adding the baseline and instruments. |
| 16th July | After adding the instrumental part in the previous session, I added vocals into the soundtrack so that my cultural side of my own identity and heritage was communicated. |
| 19th July | Second to last session with Mr Luckett on making the soundtrack. I added more vocals into the soundtrack and cleaned up the soundtrack more and quantised the music. I also changed the pitches of the vocals to fit more with the bass line of the music as a whole. |
| 21st July | Started and finished the whole of the final sixth outfit. This meant that all the designs of the collection were all physically made ready for the show. |
| 23rd July | This was the last music session with Mr Luckett, so the focus was on completing and cleaning up the music soundtrack. This session was also used for a review session and getting the music burned onto a CD for use for the fashion show. |
By the 23rd of July, all the pieces; whether music or textile garments, were all finished and ready for the fashion show event.
Feedback from other practioners:
Flora Leo:
Biography:
At 9 years old, Flora was awarded a specialist scholarship to study the piano and violin at Wells Cathedral School before continuing her musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she was offered a full scholarship to study Media and Applied Music (Composition).
As a composer, she regularly conducts, directs and produces her own works in both recording studio and concert hall environments, and although she has a keen interest in music for Film and TV, she also writes and performs classical chamber music and is a prolific pop and musical theatre songwriter.
She is currently writing the book, music and lyrics for 'Triangularity' and 'The Most Beautiful Suicide' which will be performed at the Tristan Bates Theatre in September 2018.
Other original musicals include 'Show & Tell' and 'The Lightning Road'.
She has also worked as producer/arranger for West End star Yanle Zhong (‘Avenue Q’), and as producer/writer/arranger on ‘The Space In Between’ for singer Jonathan Eio.
Her writing and arranging credits include the documentary 'The Way We Are in London', extracts from the TV series 'Simon Schama's History of Britain' and the US film 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.'
In 2018 Flora was the MD for 'The Last Five Years' at the London Theatre with Seagull and Wolf Productions and was nominated for an 'Offy' for Best Musical Director for 'Free Solo' at the Drayton Arms Theatre.
Her musical 'The Lightning Road' will have its first professional production at The Actors' Church in Covent Garden on 26th October.
Feedback from Flora Leo:
- Do you think that the song matches the outfits and vice versa?
Yes, I think the vibrancy of the colours and materials used in the collection are also reflected in the upbeat rhythmic grooves and electro feel of the music track.
2. What do you think went well?
The collection works together as a whole and has a fun retro vibe as well as working in a contemporary setting.
3. What do you think could have gone better?
The collection could potentially be extended to include more casual outfits or perhaps some outfits which explore gender fluidity.
4. What would you rate the outfits out of 5?
4.5
5. What would you rate the song out of 5?
5
6. What do you think of the combination of the song and the outfits overall?
Very appropriate - maybe the world music influences of your dual heritage in the song could have come across in the outfits more.
7. Any further feedback?
A fun and well judged collection.
India Copley:
Biography:
India Copley is currently a textile designer and maker who is working as an art technician in Blackheath High School. She studied at the University of the Arts London at the Chelsea School Art and Design, where she did a BA Hons degree in Textile Design, and received a first class honours degree. She also currently works as a studio assistant at One We Made Earlier Studios. Copley also worked as an interior designer and showroom sales assistant for four years at Places and Spaces Design LTD.
Her approach to working involves an application of questionable surface design onto three-dimensional shapes in a state of playful, multi-disciplinary experimentation. Using drawing as a tool to inspire her pieces, her work unfolds and escalates as colour, pattern and texture meet material- and process-focused forms. She is heavily involved in the making procedure of my pieces, using laborious craftsmanship and step-by-step techniques to create my relating shapes. In her quest to form a relationship with her pieces she uses a very hands-on method to building, mould-making and casting to evolve her work, whilst filling, adding and extruding to perfect a touch-worthy textured finish.
Copley's work often behaves as a collection of pieces that complement and interact with one another in a lively collision of shape, colour and texture. The position of her work within society is that of an installation context, gallery, interiors or display setting. It becomes almost interactional as my ensembles aim to intrigue the viewer, creating questions regarding the properties and qualities of the pieces. What is that? Can I touch it?
Feedback from India Copley:
"I think the variety of different fabrics and textures make this a really exciting collection, alongside the contrasting music. The use of different fabrics works well in representing identity, the soft floral lace and crushed velvet gives a very feminine feel and the shocking pink metallic fabric, combined with the black gives more of a punky look, along with an upbeat track with the vocals which represent a part of your own heritage. I think the garments shapes are cohesive across the collection and work well in complimenting one another, you have done a brilliant job in creating six individual outfits using different patterns and techniques - yet make them all look so intrinsic as a whole collection whilst also creating a track to again tie your ideas into a cohesive piece of work for a show.
I speak from my area of expertise of textiles and I think there is a potential to further progress the textile elements of your work, you could maybe have added in some printed/embroidered areas of fabric to soften the contrast between black and pink - these could have been designs that are representative of individuality. Naturally, black is dominating for for the eye, this contrast in colour could have been slightly softened by using a grey or navy blue so that the black does not overpower your lovely designs too much.
I would rate your collection a 4 out of 5. I think this is a brilliant collection, and a very ambitious one to have taken on by yourself, the pieces are fluid and they looked so striking on the catwalk in the fashion show back in February. You should be very proud of yourself, it's a very skilful and well executed collection. I would rate the music a 4 out of 5 as I think there could be more elements added to make it a more exciting piece but again is very skilful for this being your first track composed and experimenting with a new art form as you mentioned."
Sharing my work with others:
To share my work with others, I went on Instagram and posted a link to the soundtrack I made, along with pictures from the fashion show to get feedback over both parts from a larger range of people.
Along with this, I added a link to swipe up from the Instagram story to my Survey Monkey questionnaire to make it easier to give feedback.
The link to my Survey Monkey questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FMKFQF
I added a short description of what the song and collection were about on the second slide on the Instagram story, to give people a background knowledge on what the survey was about.
Aside from these two slides, I added more slides of pictures of the collection I made for the Fashion Show to show more of the clothes individually so people would be able to answer the questions.
Screenshots of my questionnaire:
Feedback I recieved:
I managed to get 89 responses from my friends and Instagram followers, which I was very happy with. I found the responses very helpful to know what worked well and what could have been improved. I also liked how I got to know other people's opinions on what they thought on my collection and soundtrack.
As there was quite a large amount of responses, I will add about 10 screenshots of some of the responses, below to each question.
1. Do you feel the song matches the outfits and vice versa?
Out of the 89 people who replied to my survey, the majority voted that the song matched the outfits and vice versa. Over 80% of the people who completed the survey, voted yes, that the song matched the outfits, but just under 20% did vote no, that they did not think that the outfits and song matched. However reading through the responses to the other questions of those who voted no to the initial question, most either wrote that they preferred the outfits more than the song, or the reverse, or that they liked the both but as individual pieces of work and not as a cohesive.
I am very happy with the responses that I received and took on board the critiques.
2. What do you think went well?
I am very happy with the comments I got about what went well in the project. The vast majority of the comments were about the collection itself rather than the song. It was helpful to know what other people identified as the stronger parts of the project and how people had different views on what went well.
3. What do you think could have been better?
These constructive criticism has helped me to know and identify what the weaker parts of the project were, and in regards to the responses, I think that the song seems to be weaker than the clothes. This is expected as I am a lot more centred at the textiles aspect rather than the musical part.
4. What would you rate the outfits?
On average I got 4.4 stars out of 5 stars, which I am very happy with. Some comments I got over the clothes in the further feedback section, was that some people found the clothes too revealing and short, so that is why they said to have clicked 4 stars. However there will always be creative differences between people and it is impossible that absolutely everyone will love your collection and are satisfied with it. Either way, I am very content with the score overall as the majority of people did vote 5 stars.
5. What would you rate the song?
On average, in this section, I did receive 4 stars out of 5, for the quality of my song. The majority of votes were placed among 3 to 4 stars but there was a minority that voted 5 stars which did push up the average. I am very happy with this score as I have never been very musical and quite a few people did say that they did like the song as it was quite unusual and not what they have heard before. However on the flip side, some people also said that they did not really like the song as they found it a bit "repetitive" and "random".
6. What would you rate the combination of the song and collection as a cohesive?
Overall I did get 4.3 stars out of 5, which is slightly lower than the rating of the collection and higher than the rating of the song. In the further feedback section I did receive a few comments about how some people thought that the song and collection went hand in hand but others did find that the song did not match the "vibe" of the collection. I take these comments on board and if I was to do this project all over again, I now know what I should have changed.
7. Any further feedback?
The response in the further feedback section was a bit varied but the majority was very positive but I have added both views above. Most of the comments talked about the clothes and were compliments. However there were a few comments about the song, some positive and some were constructive criticism. Both sides of the comments were helpful to see what did work well and what could have been improved.
Final Review:
Overall, I think that I have definitely developed my skills in my main art form of fashion and textiles through making a collection of six outfits. I learnt new skills, such as the ones I have mentioned before, on how to sew an invisible zip and how to make two pieces rather than just making one. I definitely do feel more confident with designing by being more exposed to it during the time I was designing the collection in contribution to the schools' annual fashion show and to try and link the outfits to the theme and link the music to it all as whole, which was something I felt I struggled with more prior to the fashion show and this project. I also feel more knowledgeable and have definitely extended my skills of the subject of music. I learnt key terminology such as to quantise, bass line and loops, and what these actually mean and how they are applied to or in a song or soundtrack. I also learnt a lot more on some of the computer programmes themselves that are used when making a soundtrack, and in this case I used Logic Pro X, so I gained more experience using this particular software and how to use it. I also learnt more about other computer softwares that could be used when making a soundtrack such as Sibelius and Garage Band, which I did not use solely when producing the soundtrack in this project but but have used before in music lessons, so I definitely explored a different and new software which I have never used before and was able to compare this new software to previous usage of the softwares which I have used before. I also learnt a bit more on other musical artists such as Paul who I used as inspiration when creating this soundtrack as the purpose of doing so was to explore different ways of adding vocals to add more texture into the song.
