I is Another Music 2

Have a look at Sade's Music Video Here:

Have a look at Alicia Keys Video:

Also have a look at the group Wild Belle's music video for 'Keep you'. Love this one, how the colours are subtle but effective and the prints are really cool too!

 

ENJOY!!

I is Another

I went to the Part one and two of the ‘I is Another’ art showcase at the New Art Exchange, hoping to find some form of inspiration for my MA project. At the showcase, they had quite a few artists from Jamaica exhibiting their work. The artwork was interesting but it was a different type of art to what I prefer. In the first show, I really enjoyed a short video film called ‘Ring di Alarm’. Even though the film focused on a modern Jamaica, there were still some factors that linked to my ideas for my project . In ‘Ring di Alarm’, there was a scene where a couple were dancing to lover’s rock music  and the colours they used to highlight the dance scene were so beautiful and sensual. The colours really evoked an emotion that matched the music and you felt the intimacy between the couple as they danced. It was really breath taking! This video reminded me of a music video by singer Sade called ‘Babyfather’ that was shot in Jamaica. It had a calm, dreamy and sensual feeling to it, the video also reflected  the songs mood which I thought was brilliant.

Another music video was ‘Girl on Fire’  by Alicia Keys, who was  inspired by the Caribbean culture  and the video had a similar vibe to Sade’s video ‘Babyfather’ . The colours and emotion felt the same . I want to try and create this emotional connection within my garments. I want my colours and textures to tell a story and draw you in emotionally. Also, I love the way the way the colours are put together to tell a story. I also want this in my collection.

While at the show, there was an artist called Peter Dean Richards and I loved his work particularly the message behind it. The thing I really enjoyed was the political aspect of his work which is inspired by the UK artist Banksy. I loved how raw his work was and how rough it looked. I want to try and emulate this in my work. I don’t  want my work to look too rough and raw because that’s not what the people on the Windrush were about. However, the conditions that they faced once in the UK were similar.

Here are a few images from the show:

Market ypur Brand!

Today Simeon Farrar the London based designer came in to talk to us about his work and his fashion career. This was a really good talk. I truly enjoyed listening to his journey from his art work to his fashion work. This session was very helpful for me because for the past few weeks I have been stressing and struggling to find what my target market is in the fashion industry.

At the assessment where I presented my work to Katharine and my group, I said that I wanted to create something that was high end. Katharine said that it was unrealistic and that my idea was not high end, it was more urban. I felt a bit disappointed because I wanted my collection to be quite high end, obviously I didn’t expect it to like Dior or Marc Jacobs but I still wanted to aim at a similar market. In the beginning, I did think of Givenchy this was because their men’s collection of late has been quite Urban and has been a hit with the men especially in the area of Hip- Hop. Such men are seen as trendsetters within the Hip-Hop community such as Swizz beatz and Kanye West who have being wearing it and because of that many people have also begun to wear it too. I’m not saying that I’m looking to market towards the Hip-Hop community but I like the fact that Givenchy is so diverse to different clientele. Also another influence of mine is British Designer Alex Mattsson I did my internship with him in the summer. He is an independent designer who inspires me with his work ethic and how he markets himself and his brand. His inspirations are quite urban but his designs are fun, smart and commercial.

Simeon helped me realise for me to be successful I need to find my market and kind of build my brand towards that. The only thing I don’t want to do is to compromise too much of my design aesthetic to please my chosen market. Simeon converted from being an Artist to a Fashion Designer and he has made a success of his work as a designer, I believe, only because he has changed his mentality from when he was an artist and did not want to sell his art work, but now as a designer he does not mind. It is weird because I actually preferred his art work and how it was transferred to his earlier work when he started as a designer. I think that he has refined his work A LOT but it still has the same technique that he started out with (screen-printing). His work now is very different and in a weird way I feel like it lacks the depth that he first started out with. I just don’t want to feel like I have ‘dumbed’ down my ideas so that people will buy my garments because in a way it will feel like I have sold out and I have not been true to myself. I want people to buy into MY brand, in to the life style I am presenting to them. I want to feel I have control of what I put out there. I do want to be a commercial designer put still put my own twist on the things I put out. At the end of the day Simeon feels happy with the designs he has put out and he enjoys his life as a designer, which I really appreciated. I hope that I can have that same feeling and success plus more in my career.

Overall I know I have got a lot of work to do and a lot of research to do about my chosen market.

Print Me 2

Using this image I again distorted it to come up with different prints!

Here is how the came out!

I like some of them and will try and knit this up in a jacquard but I am really sure on the others, I don’t think it looks Caribbean but the colours are nice.

Print Me

From reading the book The Front Room:Migrants Aesthetics in the Home ,I decided to come up with some prints that reminded you of the wallpaper in the migrants home. So from a few images that I liked I began to distort and manipulate them and here are some prints that I have come up with. I like some of them but I know they need further development. Some of them look African ( maybe because of the colours) while some remind me of the background in singer Rihanna’s  video for Rude boi. I need to work in to these prints more and change the colours which will definitely help.

Image from Book 'The Front Room:Migrants Aesthetics in the Home By Micheal McMillan 

Here is the original image that I distorted, coming up with these prints.

I further developed them coming up with these prints, here are a few ( I love the colours)

From these images I continued to distort and come up with these images.

Here Rhianna's rude boi Video:

Journey to Nottingham

Today I went to the New Art Exchange to watch ‘Journey to Nottingham’ presented by the Nottingham black archive as part of black history month . I really wanted to go to this event as I believed that it would allow me to gain more knowledge about my chosen topic and also get first-hand information rather than just reading about the Windrush in books. The night was filled with several African and Caribbean individuals sharing their first experience of coming to this country. The speakers talked about why they came to this country and how they ended up in Nottingham. The event overall helped me gain further understanding of my MA project whilst at the same time educating me on the topic of migration.

The event started off with the audience getting to know each other over a cup of tea. While there, I was seated next to a member of the Nottingham council. We started to talk and he began to share with me the history of Hyson Green and how it used to be when he first moved to Nottingham with his family. As we talked I told him why I was here and what my MA project was based on. In return, he told me that three years ago the Nottingham council had a big celebration event for the Windrush 70^th anniversary and that I could find all the information about the event at the Nottingham Library. This was really useful to me as it will enhance my research for the Windrush.

When the event started the first speaker was called Mrs Louise Garvey. She talked about her life in Jamaica when she was younger. I really loved this part because it really painted an image in my mind of how life was in Jamaica. It showed me different aspects of the Caribbean life. One thing that was really interesting was when she talked about how her grandparents raised her because her mother had left to England (the motherland) to find a job. She said most people in the Caribbean were raised by their grandparents while their parents were working or went out to find jobs. She talked about how grandparents taught their grandchildren to be young ladies and young men and to always present themselves in the best way. This connected to my MA project as this went back to the reason why the men and women were dressed so well when coming to the UK, they wanted to represent their country and race in the best light as possible to the white Europeans.  Also, this was important because Jamaica was colonised by the English and the way the English dressed had an impact on their dress sense. I wanted my MA project to reflect this as I really wanted to go back to the days when men dressed as men and women dressed as women. I really liked this idea and wanted my work to reflect this. I don’t want my work to just be about clothes I want to present a way of living a whole life style to my consumer. I want my collection in a way to pay homage to those migrants that came over to a new country. They didn’t necessarily get accepted by the natives but they got on with it and made something out of themselves and strived for better not just for their families but for society as a whole.

She went on to talk about how her mother had sent for her when she was 15 to come over to England to join her. I enjoyed her memories of England even though at times it was hard for her to speak about the struggle, she spoke with such pride and dignity that I had no other choice but to respect her because of what she had experienced in life and how she was still standing strong.

She also reminisced on the house parties that used to be held and how much fun they had. A lot of the time, black people were not allowed in clubs so they threw house parties most of the time where they played music from the Caribbean and new music from America. She said being young and in a different country was fun and exciting as well as it was bad at times but they learned to just get on with it.

This information links to the information I gathered about America’s influence on the Caribbean Islands. Many of the men in the Caribbean had gone over to America to work, but due to the oppression of slavery and how black people were being treated many returned back home, and they brought back some of the fashion trends with them.

After the event had finished, I went over to speak to her and I told her what my MA project was about and she was elated. She told me how she thought that their stories were forgotten about with the youth of today. This really encouraged me to do the best I can with this project as I am representing a generation who some have forgotten about or don’t really know there story. I remember when I was doing my BA final collection at Lincoln University. I really wanted to base my next collection on the Windrush ( I always plan my collections ahead) but I didn’t know where I wanted to take it and didn’t have time to research so promised myself that over the summer I would look deeper into it. I am so happy that I am doing this project because as I learn more about these people it also encourages me to keep working harder.

There was also a poet called Pitman Browne who was performed some of his work . He was extremely entertaining and the way he delivered his poems were really cool. He created a beat with his words (kind of like a reggae calypso beat) it was really fun and interesting.

Overall it was a good event that I really enjoyed it personally and also I believe that it will help me with my MA project.