Wednesday 6 July 2011

Illustration boards for Final collection

After all my posts on fashion illustrators at the start of the year, I have finally produced my illustration boards to represent my collection.

Using the research on both modern and historical artists, I started to sample combining the two styles of art in one piece, along with elements of my theme.

The two artist styles I chose were Kandinsky an abstract artist from the early 1900 and a modern fashion illustrator named COCO. The styles they both work in are very similar and mainly based on shape.

I then worked in my sketch book re-producing the style of these artists work, but using my theme of floristry within it.

I feel these styles suit my theme very nicely, as the theme of flowers is itself a very obvious theme, therefore presenting it in a more abstract way makes the whole thing a bit more complex and more interesting to look at.

I then started to combine both the modern and historical styles together to gather ideas for my final boards. As well as the abstract geometric style of art, I went back to me research on Laura Laine and how I could apply her style of figure into my pieces.

The main idea of the board was to some how show your garments in a mix of contemporary and historical art forms. I think from my sample above I have found a really interesting and different way of displaying my designs from my final collection, rather than just drawing your average fashion figure wit clothes. I've also stuck to my final collection colour scheme as I think this helps keep the whole project together.


This is my final board. I chose to display my dress design, as I was able to you the geometric effect to display the roses and leafs that are stitched onto my dress. Another thing I added to my final boards was some of the lyrics that inspired me to my FMP theme of flowers.
The medias I have used in my final piece are : pencil, charcoal, fine-liner, ink, chalk, oil pastel, watercolour and collage. I feel by the use of multi- media the final piece had a more textural look, and draws the eyes to all areas of the work.

I am really happy with this board as it definitely brings through my feminine feel that I have had throughout my collection and entire project. I think my theme also shows through clearly as the flowers and leaves are the obvious aspect brought straight from my collection and then the silhouette of my outfit is shown loosely on the figure.

The final thing we were asked to do for this illustration brief was assign a market level to our illustration boards. After both the research on market levels and into the different ways f ashion is communicated I would say that my illustration board is aimed at a Ready-To-Wear market. This is because its not quite fine-art/edgey and expensive looking as your normal Couture style of illustration. However the design ideas are maybe slightly to complex for a highstreet market and the kind of audience it attracts.
Generally a R-T-W customer would be over the age of 30, hence would be more likely to have a knowledge or art, or at least the mind set to appreciate the design of my board. Whereas a younger customer may find the style to complex to fully see what the board is displaying. The other reason I see my board as ready to wear is the style of figure I have used. The style of figure is very edgy and more Tim Burton-esque, also fashion figures always tend to be drawn with very elongated legs from the major designer fashion shows, which are also all ready-to-wear or couture.