Time

I think it has become a bit of a struggle to keep up to the time constraints that the live brief has provided me with. We only had the Christmas holidays to put together a body of work to show Sam Leutton on the day we arrived back at University. From this point we only then had a further two weeks to produce and finish 6 large samples.

 I am aware that this is what the industry would be like but it has been a shock to the system. In some ways, this is positive as it is showing me how quickly I can work and I am still maintaining a level of quality that can sometimes be lost when working within small time frames.

I am however finding it quite tough and find myself coming into University early and leaving late. But at the same time, I feel that my skills on the domestic machine are improving greatly because of it and that it has almost acted like an intensive training session.

Laser Cut Kisses

I decided to push the idea of using the kisses within my body of work further. I wanted to get them produced into a tangible object that could be then used as something that could be embellished on to my samples.

 

Considering I had never laser cut before, they turned out really well. It's quite odd seeing something that started out as a flat mark on a greetings card being transformed into something you can touch and feel.

Sophie's writing

As I found the text from birthday card from Sophie really lovely, I decided to gather any other text that she had written to other family members from christmas cards and the drawings that she had drawn for me.

For me, it was not only the text that was interesting, but the "kisses" that were left at the end of her message in the card. I thought they were so interesting because of their irregularity. None of them were the same size or shape or orientation and I think this makes them even more charming, they're completely unique.

I decided to blow the kisses up. I then thought that they could be developed further, possibly into a motif or punchcard or perhaps something else to contrast against the knitting?

Care Free

The thing that I love the most about Sophie's drawings is her care free attitude towards them. She is not precious and does not seem to worry too much about choices or colours and when asked why she had chosen something, she'd often reply with "because I did want to!", said in such a way that might suggest I was being silly for asking. This was something that really interested me and I felt that it was a way that meant I could explore the mix and blending of unusual or unexpected materials together.

 I want to try and adopt Sophie's attitudes towards her drawings and break out of my quite controlled, usual way of working.


I think that the materials that you can see in the images will be quite representative of the materials that I want to use or replicate when creating my samples for Leutton Postle.

Key ideas

Interestingly, Sophie decided to draw her family (as we all have done as children). She drew her mum, dad and sister in a wide variety of materials such as sand, pencil, crayons and her favourite material, glitter.

She seemed to be drawn to it immediately. She loved the sparkle and would draw her outline in PVA glue and apply glitter, or use one of her many, many glitter glues to create marks. It was interesting to see how she dealt with a fluid material and I loved the quick nature of her drawings with the glitter.

In another piece, she started using sponges to a paint with, creating a broken, block colour mark. I thought that the edge that was created by the porous nature of the sponge was interesting. Again, speed seemed to be key here.

Childlike or drawn by a child?

The brief stated that the work should be created from a selection of reference points and I decided to focus on the "childlike" aspect. Instead of focusing on "childlike" drawings, I felt that it would be much better to look at drawings that have been done by a child. This would give the marks authenticity and would mean that the work would be organic. Trying to draw like a child and a child's drawings are actually quite different. A child draws freely, unenhibited and they are not precious. Drawing like a child can look extremely forced so it seemed like the best way to eliminate this.

I started by looking at a birthday card that I recieved from my 4 year old cousin, Sophie, who is learning to write independently and loves drawing and painting.

This also sparked an interest in looking at Sophie's writing. The placement and form of her letters was so charming and I felt like it could be a really intersting thing to look at and interpret for this brief.

I wanted to give Sophie some free reign over what she drew too, so I decided to simply provide her with paper and all of her usual materials that she already has in a box. This would help to determine both colour and texture.

Leutton Postle live brief

As part of the 'Locating' unit, it was explained that we must create work suitable for a live brief that has been provided by an external client. The brief that best suited the Knit side of textiles was provided by Leutton Postle, a luxury knitwear label.

I was both excited and nervous about starting a live brief as I had never worked specifically for a client before. I felt that I should work in the same way that I would normally, but remember that the time frame is quite small and that I need to be keeping the project constantly on the move.

I began by looking at the Leutton Postle website, to gather inspiration. I wanted to see what the label was about and get a feel for how they worked and the aesthetic of their label. The general aesthetic seemed to vary quite drastically throughout the span of their relatively short career. I assumed that this was due to the label still establishing their identity within the fashion world and felt that it could also mean that they are open to new ideas and new directions of which they may want to take their work, or at least explore.

Their current collection (S/S 14) appeared to be more sportswear-led than their past collections and I think that a sport-luxe vibe works well with the playful use of pattern and colour and could be something that I could explore further.

I also watched the fashion films created by Leutton Postle and this confirmed the playful nature of the brand and I constantly kept reminding myself that this was something that needed to remain prevalent.

See Leutton Postle's website (below).

http://leuttonpostle.com/