Designblog

Group D of the Basic Year worked on the GRA DRESS-INDEX* project during the months of February and March 2013. Each student took ‘dress’ at the GRA as a starting point for new clothing designs. Each individual research resulted in one new outfit. These outfits were presented in the form of a fashion show at the staircase of the old GRA building (between 2nd and 3rd floor) on March 21st. It was an energetic – exciting – show, here a video synopsis of the show:

>> As one student said: People dress quite boring at the Rietveld, this is way more fun…. Why don’t we dress up like the GRA DRESS-INDEX outfits every day?

*GRA = Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam
DRESS = Clothing in a broad sense; the way people wear, move around and behave in clothing
INDEX = List arranged usually in alphabetical order of
some specified data (as subject, or keyword)<

When I look at the first research I did, I find some detail pictures of what people are wearing, pictures of hands, but most notable are the pictures of people sitting on the ground. In our classroom the ground is so full with our stuff and our bodies. We leave everything on the ground, our bags, clothes, camera’s and projects. When I look at the pictures everybody looks comfortable sitting on the ground and in a way vulnerable. The vulnerability is what interests me.

When I showed the research to Elisa she noted that because of the way of seeing and capturing, the bodies are in a weird perspective. Elisa showed the book “all events are even” from the photographer Mark Borthwick, I like the forms he creates in his images, the feeling it gives me connects with my research. I tried to compare the pictures of clothes on the ground with the pictures of people sitting on the ground. By removing all the skin and hair, I thought I would make them more similar to the clothes and bags on the ground. The comparison doesn’t really work, only a little because of the colors. But for me the pictures of the people sitting are much more interesting because they bring the clothes to life. I found it nice to discover that without the hair and skin, you don’t take away the vulnerability in the image.

The space that is left when I cut the person, becomes grey in photoshop. It was suddenly a very grey photograph because the floor, walls, window frames, doors, almost everything in the building is grey. We color the school with ourselves. One of my try-out outfits is based on the idea of making a “Rietveld building dress”. Because Rietveld makes me think of “de Stijl” I thought of using the shape of the Yves Saint Laurent “Mondriaan dress”. I used a grey fabric.

The other try out was the same model but with a pattern of the silhouettes. The result was quite boring so I cut the silhouettes out of the dress. The dress looked a little bit nicer, but I liked the forms that where left over the most. The shape of the YSL dress, that I used in both try outs, was to dominant so it had to go.

I tried to make a new dress where the YSL model is replaced with two body silhouettes. I am not satisfied with the dress, it gives to much of a “tarzan and jane” feeling. Under the dress the model had the left over forms from the previous dress pressed to her body with panties. The forms are used as underwear.

In the fashion show there needed to be an action with every outfit. I am thought of that action to be “cutting”, because that was what I was doing in my research and try outs. The dress that my model is wearing and that I am going to cut out, is one big silhouette, made from a firm fabric. When you cut out someones clothes, what is under is revealed, something vulnerable.

Inspiration Yoko Ono “Cut Piece”

Knot (shot video collage)

Hair, an extremely personal thing. Every person wears there hair differently expresses themselves through there hair and struggles with what will suit them.

One style that has suited me very well is the bun, a style that is universally used by all long haired girls. In the Rietveld the bun is used often. It differs from high in the sky to a low and tightly rolled bun. While observing the buns of the rietvelders it occurred to me that our buns can be compared to some sort of landscape. An always alternating landscape in which we can feel at home, personalized and detailed to fit our character.

I personally wear my hair as a wild mountain like a high peak that just allows the mountains to peak out from the masses of the mountain filled horizons. Others wear there bun as a field meticulously organized by the farmer.

In the English definition of a “knot” (the way of saying bun in dutch) it stated that a know maybe a complex problem, but also a unifying bond and a feeling of tightness. I think that this contradiction shows exactly how people use the bun, and depicts exactly what i believe to be some kind of conclusion to the short video collage made above.

When transforming my research in to a 3d product I focused on two aspects. Using hair as the medium of choice and exploring on how I can translate my idea on how hair is a landscape. Using a wig, i tried to place the wig in such a way that it became a part of the body by overtaking other parts of the body.

This photo is an example of my process, I chose to let the hair take over the face as a mask having a longer suspense to come to final bun.
I transformed the hair in such away that the hair became a sort of man constructed field.

Using the mask idea as a basis, I hoped to develop the aesthetics of the mask. Markus Leitsch uses the same starting point covering a person with hair, the person becomes somewhat of an animal. This is a very direct relation to landscapes, by dehumanizing the person the concentration lays more on the piece.
This piece by Markus Leitsch is shown on the left. Its a very direct relation to the fur of an animal I really like how there is a certain movement in the hair. The movement that he has created also leads to the head, where the hair then comes together.

My final product became somewhat of a costume. I focused treating the hair as if it was a man made landscape, a corn field. I racked the hair, cut the hair for harvesting and collected some hair as if it was a hay stack to save for the winter months. This resulted to a somewhat fairy tale like piece. An absurd mask taking over the face with the main focus on the top of the hair where a bundel of hair lays lively.

For the presentation of the piece as part of the fashion show I chose to present it on a male. As mainly woman wear there hair long it would create a distance from my initial research and allow the piece to speak for its self.

I add a loose piece of hair on his pants unifying the outfit he was wearing and showing the build up from the bottom to the top of his body.

The stalkers approach: A place and time is picked, and whoever, unknowingly, positions themselves in the spot of direct eye-catch, will be the victim. This person is objectively observed and described down to detail. The documentation grows more comprehensive and precise, following what details every movement reveals, until the object leaving the spot of observation marks the end of the session.

This particular observation was made during one and a half hours, from behind and in the dark. Gender remains unknown.

The text is given it’s visual form by what was observed during the session; colours, shape and direction of the words is dictated by these exact notes that were taken:

->Brown curls, shoulder length, wildly arranged

Jacket hung halfways over the chair in a sloppy way

Black leather, black synthetic fur collar, Left flap touches the ground

Scratching back, touching hair; thin blue sleeve comes visible: crochet in patterns, loose flaps at elbow, probably loose layers around the underarm

A slice of greyish jeans are seen between seat and backsupport of the silvergrey foldable steelchair

On the ground to the right lies a knitted black, blue, yellow + green bag with red top and zipper, handbag, approximately ten liters, decorated with pompoms hanging from each corner; braided with loose ends, made from all the yarn variations that occur in the knitted volume. Pattern: schematic spine fractions, line, line, one-time pierced rhombus, surface with fringe; shoulder hanger is attached with steel chain through rings

Right ancle is shown quickly, no skin, but torn, thready jean line

Left-tilting: Head (slightly, but this seems to be the preferred default-side), Jacket is thrown over left side of the chair, Bag tilts to the left (towards chair). The door is also on the left side.

Hair pulling makes a golden watch visible; 1 1/2 cm thick classic watch link armband

Rearranging: fur vest is pulled forward from under the jacket; put on, taken off, put over the chair, light grey knitted sweater with pattern that is traditional somewhere is chosen to be worn as first layer, then fur vest, then over-but leather coat.

5 cm heels (wedge)

Two bags: one red, one knitted.

Leaves early.

The now empty space has two knitted white sweaters in front of it, stripey fur coat to the right and burgundy hoodie to the left.

For the fashion show that finished the project off, I wanted to make an Observers Outfit. Does the observer want to be seen? I made golden glasses from two large key rings, two coat hangers and some see-through gold/silver foil,. With their both square and round shape and folds it gives the carrier a crazy, starry gaze. To go with them, I made a see-through plastic coat, with the window pattern of the academy building, viewed from the outside, on the back and a little collar on the front.

Desert storm, blizzard, hurricane, rain, overcast, mist, snow, and sun. All different weather conditions. From the extreme to the daily they all affect the way we dress, and the garments have just the same spectrum off difference as the weather effects themselves. Some strive to challenge the weather by dressing fashionable or delicate. I was more teased by their counterpart; the ones that never complain, instead wear comfy clothes and who’s clothes’s form follows function. Their occupation may vary but their way of dressing makes no weather bad.

I started sketching in my mind, on paper and with materials. Building a tent for my thoughts to gather in. The materials I used was of a similar kind from what tents are constructed of. Plastic and synthethic fabric sewn together by hand to form some sort of shell and shelter from weather abuse. In the process I was inspired by certain type of insects who truly change their biological structure and appearance through the various life stages that they go through. I could see a similarity in the way people dress and undress from practical to unpractical that corresponded to the way insects evolve. Although the similarities was quite apparent I didn’t want it to be in the visual presentation of my outfit. Instead in my early version of the garment it’s wearer rolled in to it while lying on the floor. It was as though the caterpillar spun its body with silk for a transformation.

Just as the silk hardens and loses its transparency, so did mine. The first try-outs were all built of see-through plastic but the final result was all made out of a red sheet of tarpaulin. Cut in pieces and sewn together with a machine. The handy-craft garment changed over to sturdy mass-produced work-wear. And it is just as tough as it looks. All thanks to the material properties of the tarpaulin; being at one hand flexible, easy to work and move in, it is still sturdy enough to not break and it isolate its wearer from pouring rain. Worn with little in-under and the design lets air move easily in and out of the outfit which make you arrive free from any odor. At the same time all pieces are big enough for you to pack yourself with many layers of clothing underneath their resistant plastic layering. With this outfit you are set for anything, no matter the weather.

It strikes me that people are not afraid to combine many patterns and colors. I heard that someone got restive when he thinks of the combination of squares with stripes. On the academy, I see many combinations. The boundaries are shifting here and certain “rules” like the squares with stripes or certain color combinations are wiped which sometimes new patterns emerge and some unexpected colors still come out better than you expected. I’m going to delve into the lines that might not be consciously created and a certain kind of natural transition into an outfit.

So, I started collecting different kinds of fabrics and made different combinations with them. Various types of woven wool, cotton, polyester and synthetic fabrics are the materials which I have chosen.

A jumpsuit is always a garment that I would like to make so, this was the perfect opportunity. Also because it is a complete outfit consisting of a entirety. Because my choice is about combinations of different colors, fabrics and patterns it seemed to me the ideal of a proper clothing, no boundaries but a continuous whole. To stay close to my research I chose red, gray, white and blue mainly for the colors. I’ve made from various old garments. The tubes are a sweater, the hull consists of a dress and I putted a leather cross in it. The hood I made from a dress. With this design I have primarily focused on large surfaces and materials that can be combined.

Because the main focus on my first jumpsuit is directed to large surfaces substance, I decided to make another jumpsuit but then with more details. Here again, I made use of many wool combined with a synthetic substance.
Again in the suit I sewed a pattern, again of wool, consistent with my research. These details you will come back in several places on the suit. By letting different parts open, the outfit gives you the opportunity to create many more patterns and colors so you always can make your own special outfit and never have to wear the same.

this outfit above inspired both material as color boundaries

FINAL RESULT

Previously I thought that many Rietveld students wore brown. This I think no more, thanks to this study.

Gerrit Rietveld Academy. The building were I spend the most of my one hundred sixty eight hours the week has to offer. The building were I drink the most of my coffee , which I pick up in the canteen on the ground floor.

The canteen. There is my starting point.

When I look around I see a diagram of the clothes worn in Gerrit Rietveld. The canteen is a meeting point, were people from all departments as well as teachers and visitors take their coffee and have their meals. I find it interesting to sit there and look around. Nobody can know what I am thinking about and nobody cares.

I find it nice to look at the textiles, and since my background is in tailoring maybe it is almost an old habit. I try to realize if there is any trend going on. Is there particularly much of some certain kind of fabric? Printed? Colorful? Patch worked? Second hand? Do we have more woven fabric visible or is it knitted, felted or even leather fabric we see? And what content do the fibers have. Are they made out of processed animal hair or plants so we can call them natural? Or are they more on the synthetic spectrum? Sometimes it is hard to see and then it comes to guessing…

After writing randomly down what is to see in the canteen on a regular day I decided to make myself a system; to take snapshots and analyze them. I took one before lunch and one in the lunch brake. By analyzing the photographs, which should give me a quite good overview on the average dress code in the academy, I calculated the ratio between the textile fibers and the processes they have been put in.

As you can see the ratio between the natural fibers and the once that are either synthetic or mixed with synthetics is 40 % versus 60 %. That means that out of 5 cloths 2 will be made out of natural fibers and 3 of synthetic related material.

On the other histogram you can see that woven and knitted material is what we have most of in our surrounding, but since shoes are often made of leather, the leather bar has some value as well.

When it came to making an outfit related to the research I decided to choose weaving as a method, since weaving and knitting are the main processes of the fibers in Rietveld surrounding according to my results. I wanted to work with raw material, and since wool and cotton are the most common natural fibers in (Rietveld) clothing I choose to work with sheep wool among with fish skin, which I count as leather. The weaving I did in a very primitive  way to match the rest of the working process. I wanted to keep the process of the fiber out of my work, and that worked better in combination with very course weaving. The headpiece I made to make more harmony in the outfit, since the woolen outfit is quite overwhelming on its own and in that way I could also represent a suitable ratio of leather in the outfit according to my research.

At last I wanted to show layers, since we most of the times have many layers on ourselves in everyday life. I decided to stick with the raw material and the weaving method worked well for this. I took several kinds of plastic, which can be recycled and processed into textile fibers, as well as fish skin and bast, and wove them into the structure.

C82% M79% Y46% K45%

 A mysterious dark blue was the starting point of my observation,

 I could see this color on everybody, combined with lighter tints of blue and black,

wearing simple jeans and very little accessories.

 And most of the time a comfortable sweater in the same color.

The connection between the school as a building and the students in it became clearly visual for me;

people walking down the blue stairs transforming into a different scene

like a landscape with elements that make sense between each other.

Students sitting on the floor working on their projects are getting camouflaged with the surrounding,

and become just a dark spot on the ground.

I based my research on these two observations;

the dark blue sweater and the camouflaged people.

I started experimenting with the conventional clothes that I constantly see at school.

I tried out different ways of wearing them, getting new forms and textures.

I also experimented with daily tools like scissor,

school materials and basic materials like tape and plastic bags to finish off the clothes.

The shapes I got were really interesting.

Especially the one that came out from a simple sweater,

which I turned into a strange hoody giving it an urban-hip-hop feeling which I also perceived at school.

The tension of the fabric created on the shoulders by the way of wearing the sweater,

makes you bend a bit to the front like the people working on the floor.

I created a skeleton out of the sweater, a basic structure,

and then I worked on the details based on some objects I used in my research,

scissors, tape and a plastic bags on which I drew some black patterns with marker

I painted the leggings with the same gray scale from the building

They turn into live pillars supporting the heavy structure, cracking with the movement of each step.

RESEARCH.

To continue my project I started doing research on various postures students at the Rietveld Academy take during making, creating, building their work. I have made pictures of how people behave in their clothing, the way their clothes work with the body while working and noted that the students don’t dress according to the task they are working on, like for example people working at building sites do. These students just wear what they like to wear!
So is it more image than comfort and protection what they are looking for?
Although the clothes do not seem to really get into their way whilst working, I was especially intrigued by their shoes.
I noted a difference between comfortable and less comfortable shoes for working and I also noted that shoes sometimes are used as some kind of tools. The shoes that attracted my interest the most were the shoes looking far from comfortable.

The black platform shoes are less flexible to the way we move our body. The height of the sole seems to limit adjustment to movement. The platform shoes do seem to be used as “tools” much more than flat, flexible shoes. These white sneakers below look much more comfortable, because of their flexibility. They adjust more to the foot in different postures.

On the first movie can be seen how difficult it is wearing platform shoes going down the stairs. Why would someone wear these shoes I wondered…? As the boy wearing them explains in the second movie it was the design that triggered him buying them. “It was an online buy so I haven’t fitted them. And by wearing I noticed the difficulty walking on them and how heavy they actually are. They are absolutely not comfortable” he remarks. So it looks platform shoes are anything but comfortable. How can it be that these uncomfortable shoes are so popular at the Rietveld Academy.

(more…)

The bag is everywhere on the human body. It is being up, middle and down and even disappears.

In my impression, the bag acts a minor role on the human body wherever it is. Starting to cut a bag into pieces based on observation sketches above and then making collages.

Making collages which have a feeling of extracted elements of the bags in the academy, which are ‘devotion’ and ‘indifference’.

The final outfit:

The black surfaces, which are originally part of the bottom of the bag,
are shaped in some volumes in order to depict an emphasis of its usability.

The twisted form of the shirt and the parts of a T-shirt represents a gap between ‘devotion’ and ‘indifference’ (which is a concept of this outfit). Gray fabric attached to the leg expresses a sense of coldness. It traces my impression of the locations where the bag is in the academy.

My research was about what kinds of socks Rietveld people wear and how they wear their socks. Every day in school I see many people roll up their pants and show their colorful, various kinds of socks. That interests me and triggered me to do this research.

Socks have evolved over the centuries from the earliest models which were made from animal skins gathered up and tied around the ankles. Nowadays, socks can be created from a wide variety of materials like as cotton, wool, nylon, acrylic, polyester, etc. Styles or patterns are innumerable, one color, dots, stripes, argyles, complex patterns…

So I started collecting pictures of different kinds of socks in school, and ask the people questions like  where they are from, where they got the socks, why they roll up pants to show two socks.

Polka dot is a very common pattern, it gives a lively and playful feeling, also the color combination on this pattern is often contrast, vivid, for example, black and white, red and yellow, pink and white, etc. Many Rietveld people wear socks with Polka dots, and they are from everywhere, while the pattern started to appear on clothing in the late 19th century in United Kingdom.

Another common pattern is stripe. They are so common and worldwide popular that I could not even find a convincing origin of them… You can see them almost everywhere in your daily life, also it is a very normal pattern on socks, I am personally not a fan of stripes but I believe I have at least four pairs of socks that with stripes.

One-colored socks are also quite popular in school, there are basically two ways of wearing them: 1. Dark colors, “hiding” in between pants and shoes, they are there but you don’t really notice them; 2. vivid colors, like pink, skyblue, or even neon colors, sometimes they also wear just white socks while their pants and shoes are black, to create this contrast, to catch your eyeballs.

I noticed that many Scandinavian people in school wear socks with argyle patterns, which is kind of interesting because this pattern is originally from Scotland in th 17th century. In Rietveld,  argyles socks are often in combination with aged oldschool sneakers.

I also noticed that some people wear 2 different socks on each foot, when I asked some of them about the reason, they said they simply could not find the other socks.

As for the reason that people roll up their pants and show their socks, the most frequent given answer I got from people was ‘just for the style‘. Some say when the pants are too long, they look lazy and drab, they roll up the pants to keep the energy up. Some people simply love socks, they collect all kinds of socks (one girl I interviewed says she has four big boxes of socks), they are proud of their socks and they want to show them to people.

My idea was to exaggerate the fact that people show their socks, make it a bit extreme.  So I made a huge socks that you put on your head.

For my research  I was walking through the school, and photographing students that stood out to me. Then, I wandered into one of the departments, and started to observe the people that were working there. As I watched, I noticed that they behave differently here then they do in the hallways. So much more comfortable, almost as if they are at home. That’s when I realized that the departments are like save havens for the students, a place where they feel in place. So I started taking pictures.

After taking a lot of photographs, I started to notice that there were connections visible between the students and their surroundings, either in color, shape ore material. So I started documenting the connections that became visible to me. I did this first through photographs, and later also through drawing and 3-D experiments. In the images below, I tried to visualize the connections that I saw between the girl in the checkered shirt and the materials that she was working with (in the pictures above). In this case I did this through drawing and a 3-D experiment.

After doing this research and the experiments, I decided that my concept for making an outfit would be ‘connecting to the school’ through clothing. So I started to make try-outs at home, using different techniques. My main focus at first was to let the clothing connect through shapes in it’s surroundings. I made two molds out of fabric, and started to put them on a dummy to create different shapes. On the pictures below you can see a few examples.

When I was done with experimenting with these shapes on the dummy, I realized that I wasn’t satisfied with them. They didn’t make the connections between the clothes and the environment clear enough. So I started to head in a different direction. My next idea was to make the connections clear through photographs. I started with small experiments, by taking a 360 turn in the classroom, and making a snapshot every time I turned. With these photographs, I then experimented with paper and fabric.

My idea now, is to take snapshots like this of the whole entire school, documenting every corner of the building. After that, I want to use the technique from the image above, to create an outfit completely constructed out of photographs, in which every angle of the building is visible, and connecting to it in a very visual way.

When I started to work on the actual outfit, I found out that it is nearly impossible to make a whole outfit out of this self-made grid-like material. So I decided that I would print out the pictures of the school on paper in stead of on fabric, and I proceeded to make the design that you see on the pictures below by sewing the paper onto fabric. After finishing that outfit, I really didn’t like it. It didn’t reflect what I had in mind ore my research. So I decided to make a completely new outfit, using the previous one as a prototype. This is the result.

Looking back on this project, I realize that I changed my mind many times. This started already at the beginning of the research, where I struggled with finding a good way of working. Eventually, I found that the best way for me was to just observe, seeing the connections that became visible to me between the students and the building, and trying to visualize these through drawings and photos. Then I got a bit stuck again, trying to incorporate the connections in forms. So I went into another direction, this is the direction that I stuck with until the end, making connections to the building by simply using photographic images of the school and incorporate them in the fabric of the garment. In this process, I again changed my mind while I was working, by going from using actual paper photographs to drawing the images onto the fabric by hand. The garment now feels as a real result of the research, a clear conclusion after a lot of doubts and changes.

What I basically did was putting my thoughts on paper. I walked around the school and observed the people. While doing that I just wrote and sketched down what came to my mind. Because of this some of the sketches are untrue and some of them are true. I like this part because no one can tell witch sketches are true and witch are not. I choose to dig in to the part of the heads. The hair and hats and this way off dressing. The next step was to photograph the students to discover more.

What I discovered is that a lot of Rietveld students don’t cover their ears, with hair or hats. But why? Is it because most students don’t hear their native tongue and because of that they have to listen carefully? Or is it just a practical thing, for instance when your busy making beautiful art you don’t want your hair in the way. I printed the pictures I took and experimented a bit with it. I covered everything but not the ears.

Then I was looking for the surrounding and how the sound influence us. Where are our ears when we listen?

So I focused myself on the listening part. We hear a lot of things but we don’t listen to all of them. You know when someone says something and you hear him but still you don’t understand and you have to ask him what he was saying. Most of the times this is because your mind is somewhere else. I want to make an outfit that makes you hear better. But how? block all sounds? let all sounds come in? enlarge sound? …….. What I did was making sure your mind is at the right place for listening. This means all senses have to be blocked so you can only focus on listening, like a blind man.

This is the result. It is an outfit made out of sound isolation material and speaker wire. The sound isolation material will reduce noise and makes sound more clear. As you can see I blocked all senses. The only thing you can do in this outfit is: walk and listen.