Designing

From looking at the caterpillar, I starting designing pieces that are made up of individual segments being linked together to form an outfit. The outfits that I designed were abstract not ready to wear because I wanted them to really represent the mutilation and over the top theme that I was focusing on. 

I think the part I liked the most about the designs that I created was the way that not only were the segments connected, but also a few of the outfits were connected to each other. I took the shapes of the outfits from the previous research I had done and then connected them to each other to form a bond. 

If I was to change anything with the designs that I did it would be to add colour, I wanted to keep them blank to begin with because I wasn’t sure what colours I wanted to work with, but looking back I think it looks quite plain and slightly boring. 

After designing a 6 piece collection I came up with the idea that the final piece would be 1 garment that was worn by 5 people, all connected, who would showcase it by walking down the catwalk together in a horizontal line. 

Fabrication 

I want to use knitwear to create the volume of my pieces. By using the Honeycomb technique and then using the under side of the fabric it will give me the segmented look that I am trying to achieve. To achieve this volume the wool will have to be really thick to achieve the density that I want. 

The Human Centipede

All of my research so far has led me to looking at changing different body parts around and sewing them back together. I thought it would be interesting to find images and research to influence my project from the film, The Human Centipede. The main character takes people and sews them to each other in one long line, like a centipede.

Not only does it fit in with this new theme of mutilation that I have going on but also it’s grotesque.

I think the next stage to move onto is now designing I really want to incorporate the shapes of a centipede and the idea of being attached into my designs. 

Mutilation

The next step that I took to developing my idea was looking at the naked female figure and mutating it by swapping over the limbs and other body parts. Straight away when I had done this I could see how this could work as a collection and wanted to take the idea even further. 

I thought that the images that I swapped around were really good, but I wanted to produce something a bit more 3D so that my work wasn't so flat. This is why I brought the dolls into it. I swapped around all of the body parts, photocopied them and then used them to create collages. 

After looking at man made mutilation and disfigurements I decided to then research into natural disfigurements. This then lead to the freak show and circuses that were extremely popular in Victorian times (which was also the same era as when Jack the Ripper was around). 

I think this was a really interesting way of taking the project as it created a lot of interesting shapes for me to work from. 

I like how this project has gone down a slightly less obvious route so far and want to keep going with this. 

Research

For this project I really wanted to concentrate on the research side of it and developing an idea as much as possible. I started off looking at Jack the Ripper and what he did to his victims. I originally thought of looking at the wounds and linking them in with perforating the skin, but then i read that he used to mutilate his victims when he killed them by pulling out the organs and laying them over the shoulder. for me this definitely represents the grotesqueness of what the Ripper did.

Mark making

To help start the project we spent the day "mark making". this basically entailed different activities such as drawing with your left hand, drawing with your eyes shut etc. by doing this it made us not overthink the project at the beginning and also gave us loads of drawing work to put into the project.

It was all about first responses.

Whatever came to mind we put on paper by making marks that we felt represented our words.

In the afternoon we started doing some mannequin work. For me this was the most unenjoyable part of the day but i could see that it was important for the project so i tried to do my best at it. By doing some mannequin work at the beginning of the project it helps to visualise what could be created from an early stage.

Three words

The Brief 

To pick one word from thee different categories and explore what each word means, trying to push the idea as far as it will go. 

My Words:  Jack the Ripper.... Perforate/Puncture... Grotesque 

To start off the project the obvious thing to do was to go out and get some primary research from museums and galleries. I decided to go to the Welcome collection that was exhibiting the sexology collection. The reason why I chose this exhibition to go to was that I thought it linked in really well with my theme of jack the ripper. All the women that he murdered were prostitute and one of them was even raped. Sex seemed to be at the center of it so logically my first thought was to research into that. 

For me the exhibition was a bit of a let down, purely because we were not allowed to take any photos so all I had to take away was information and a few images I managed to sneak. 

The second place I decided to visit was the ripper tour. Unfortunately again this didn't work out as well as I had hoped, as the only time I could go on it was during the day so their was no tour guide to take us round the streets. All the images I collected were just random points in streets that I knew someone had been murdered on. 

Overall the museum trips were not very useful for me when it came to gathering imagery but what it did do was give me ideas for where I could take the project. 

If time had allowed I would of gone to a few more museums or gone to the ripper tour at night when they were touring.