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For these past 2 years, every-time I make a collection, it's something dark and full of horror. But for this project, I wanted to create something opposite. I always wanted to bring romance into my work but never  understood how, so this time I thought I am going to go for it 100%. The theme of my project is unrequited love or even one-sided love. I believe it’s quite a powerful emotion when somebody doesn’t love you the way you need them to. I looked at a lot of romanticism paintings for inspiration and I also did a photoshoot with one of my friends where the idea was that her love left her alone and she is now looking everywhere to feel something. One of the reasons I wanted to do this because everyone has been through what I am showing, so my collection is a way for people to go back in the past and think about the person that they adored but couldn’t have them. I was feeling very melancholic while I was working on this collection because I was thinking about a certain someone I couldn’t have but now realized I am better off without them. And so are you. I developed my ideas by not limiting myself. I was looking everywhere when I was researching for this project, slowly it did change quite a lot because in the beginning, I wanted to show the dark side of love. How love can turn into lust, obsession and tear the person apart, but it sounded similar to my last projects. So, I mainly focused on the feeling of sadness and longing for someone. I found a tremendous amount of research. I was looking at photographers, artists, movies, exhibitions, museums and the list goes on. In my opinion, I think I did enough research because if I had done more, I would simply get confused and lost in the piles of research. The movie I was looking at was Perfume: the story of a murderer. It’s a great film and I even read the book. I fell in love with the protagonist which was Jean Baptiste Grenouille. The reason is that he manipulated the whole universe to fall in love with him, but they only loved his creation. Not him, never him. He was a nobody. I was looking at artists like Henry Fuseli, Francisco Goya, Laurie Lipton, Robert Stivers and Frantisek Drtikol. The main reason I chose them because all of their art connected to me. All of their work was full of passion, tragic and heartbroken. Or at least I felt like that. I was also looking at 17th century Paris clothing because I believe Paris is where you do nothing but make love. Whether it’s the music, the food etc. Everything about it oozes love and passion. And the perfume movie was also based in 17th century, so that also made the connection. I went to Victoria and Albert Museum where I only looked at perfume bottles. I was looking at them not only because of the perfume movie but also because of when you smell charmingly, you manipulate people loving you and pay you attention. Almost like a magnet where it’s attracting souls that are in need of love or maybe you are the one who is in need of love. I also went to an exhibition called extinction by Mike Nelson. That exhibition was made at the perfect time because every piece that Mike had created, it represented my idea and my theme more than anything. There was a room with red lights and random items laying by. It immediately spoke to me that two strangers fell in love, and they are building their dream home and their love is so passionate and strong that it turned the lights to red like bouquet of roses. I gained a lot of skills. I learned how to research more in depth. Learned to create work through my emotions. Learned pattern cutting and sewing skills. The part where I wish I had explored more would be to do more photoshoots with other people. With my colours, I knew from the start what colour I needed to use and what fabric would explain my theme better. The silhouettes came from looking at the perfume bottles and experimenting with them and putting it on the body to see how it would fit. Since the idea was full of sorrow tragic, I wanted the silhouettes to be big to represent that she is hiding behind those shapes. I did have some of them fitted to the body because I wanted to show the curves of a woman’s body since it’s such a valuable but fragile thing. I did few fabrics manipulation to demonstrate my idea and analyze my theme more. I definitely struggled to create gathering. It took me a lot of tries until I got something I was happy with. While I was creating my final garment, I came across a lot of problems such as: the sleeves being tiny bit small, the pattern being too big etc. I actually loved the errors because that’s what made me grow and come out of my comfort zone. My inspiration will always be the same. Making women look powerful like goddess. That will never change because I have seen a lot of abuse on women so that made me turn women very strong and scary human beings. I want the tables to turn where men are now afraid of women. I want to show the feminine side of men and masculine side of women. My main customer will be anyone who is confident in themself and not afraid to express who they truly are which a lot of women are afraid of at this day and age. I am designing for women who are very powerful, strong but feminine because a feminine woman is one of the strongest humans ever. She is sure of herself in any tasks she does. She is a confident woman. So confident that a guy needs to be in his top game to approach her in the street and talk to her. She will do anything to protect her and her family. My main message in this collection was to express how love is such a powerful thing, but if it’s with a wrong person, it can tear you in half and you will never heal. This route definitely relates to my chosen progression because I learned a lot of patterns cutting skills which will help me in university. I am in love with my garment that I made, and my favorite element would be the puffy shoulders because it makes her look very strong, bold and proud of herself which I was going for. If I could change something, it would be to do more drawing experimentation.

https://soap2day.rs/watch-movie/watch-perfume-the-story-of-a-murderer-full-18693.5349826

https://artincontext.org/famous-romanticism-paintings/

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=17th+century+paris+clothing+reference&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=isnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj2__St75j_AhXHa8AKHWYvDdQQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=390&bih=663&dpr=3

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=robert+stivers+photography&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=insv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu5pqsw6D_AhWDYMAKHRPQCWkQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=390&bih=663&dpr=3

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=laurie+lipton&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjqhdLXw6D_AhUXUsAKHXqaDwIQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=390&bih=663&dpr=3

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=frantisek+drtikol&source=lmns&bih=663&biw=390&client=safari&prmd=ivsn&hl=en-GB&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8_df4w6D_AhUkpycCHaW5CswQ_AUoAHoECAAQBA

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tom+ford+gucci+campaign&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJ1K-3hqL_AhXsg_0HHf6vDeEQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=390&bih=663&dpr=3

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31477913042&ref_=ps_ggl_2038407968&cm_mmc=ggl-_-UK_Shopp_RareStandard-_-product_id=bi%3A%2031477913042-_-keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI68CpzLWy_wIVcIBQBh2s-wZyEAQYBCABEgLkLvD_BwE

https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&hl=en-gb&q=extinction+mike+nelson&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP6a7b2bv_AhUVgFwKHX6NDxMQ0pQJegQIDRAB&biw=1128&bih=738&dpr=2

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The idea was very sad and melancholy. It’s about tragic love. The silhouette is quite voluminous because she is trying to hide herself from being heartbroken since the concept is about unrequited love. Some of them will be flowy too like almost she can fly away from the embarrassment. Some of them are quite fitted to her body maybe because she is trying to make him jealous by wearing tight clothes, but she still longs for that love she can never have. I chose to use fabrics like: Lace, chiffon, velvet, and fur. I was looking at lace because it has a strong emotion. Strong in a way that it is a very feminine fabric and I find femininity quite empowering since all of my ideas are based on women being almost like goddess. I used velvet because it’s very soft and sexy. I believe its one of the few fabric that speaks romance and lust because every-time you see someone wearing velvet, you just want to feel the fabric, hug it and never let go. Idea behind fur was that she is wrapping herself in the fabric and protecting her own love from being betrayed. As if she wants to be hugged by a loved one but there is no one there for her. My favorite fabric for this collection would be chiffon. Chiffon because it’s a very fragile fabric and that’s how love is. If it’s with the wrong person, it’s weak, fragile and will tear you apart and also it is quite romantic too because to me, the fabric makes you feel free like a bird. I also wanted to use a lot of embellishments because they are very feminine and romantic materials. Things like beading, embroidery, sequins, lacemaking etc.

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Gurpreet Khalsa

Title: The fragility of romance

REVIEW:

Since I started my course in September 2021, I learned a lot of things. Never have done anything related to art in my life, so doing fashion has made me very confident in myself and what I need to achieve in the future. One of the skills I absorbed in this course is how to make a mood board. At first, I didn’t even know what a mood board was, but as time went by, I was able to make mood boards about my theme relatively easy comparing to before. I also found one of my main strengths which is working with 3D materials. I would say that after my first project in the course, I felt drawn to the materials such as: metal. wood, and other 3D and sculptural materials. I also found a way to make those materials very personal to me, so I don’t just use them to because I want to. The connection is much deeper than that. Teamwork is what I became quite good at. I was able to ask for help from my friends in the course and help them with their work and give ideas to them about their theme. The main thing I learned is things about myself. The concepts I didn’t know about myself, I found them while studying fashion and learned that I am an artist. Almost like I discovered myself.

PROJECT CONCEPT:

For this project, the thing I am getting drawn to is one sided love. There is something powerful about having your heart broken. When somebody rejects you, you work on yourself and then they like you, but you don’t then like them back. That’s quite powerful in my opinion. I am looking at plenty of romanticism paintings, what and how do they interpret to me and create my own paintings about my idea of love and lust. In my opinion, romanticism means that any idea, feeling, book or even a chair that are more romantic than realistic, is romanticism. I want to show something romantic. Like unrequited love. Something that speaks melancholy. I also want to show the dark and lust side of romance because everything has a dark side. Even love. At the last 4 projects, I always show something dark and full of horror, so for this major project, I will try not to make anything to do with darkness, but I don’t know if I will succeed. The darkness haunts my dreams, where I find my ideas and every day, and I am obsessed with it because that’s where I find my creativity and break the limits not only of fashion but of myself also. After all, everyone has characteristics of love, romance and lust, so why don’t I show what those words means to me?

EVALUATION:

For this project, I will be evaluating my work by looking back to my journal and research and reflect on it and write down anything that I missed out on. I will also look at my last projects and see what I couldn’t show in those projects and then show it on this last project. I will also do one to one with the teachers and ask for their advice and they also help me to evaluate and what other things I should be doing. I will be making a checklist to make sure I do everything and don’t forget anything. My peers will also give me advice on my work and help me on my journey.

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For my research, I was looking at multiple different things. As soon as the project started, I researched Gucci campaigns, but not just any campaigns. I was mainly looking at Tom Ford campaigns when he was in Gucci. The reason being was that they ooze that sort of romanticism, dark passion and sexiness. Then I started researching romanticism paintings and I came across Francisco Goya. When I saw his work, I felt connected to it and knew exactly that he was going to be one of my artists that I will be taking inspiration from because every painting he has done, it speaks nothing but romance and sadness. I don’t know how I found the artist Laurie Lipton because I saw her name somewhere at my college and as soon as I searched her name, she became one of my favorite artists ever. Her artwork is very eye opening and eye catching to me. Majority of her work is full of sadness and romance. And the details she has in her art is just mind blowing to me and shows me that she truly is obsessed with her work, and I truly admire that. In my research, I always limit myself and don’t go beyond my box, so this time I wanted to see how far I could go with my research. I started looking into photographers. I found two photographers' books. One being Frantisek Drtikol and the other was Robert Stivers. Frantisek has been called misogynistic and womanizer because of his style, but I completely disagree. I think his work is very creative, valuable and inspirational because I believe he is trying to show that women are just human being, same as men. That we are equal individuals. Robert Stivers, my favourite photographer. His work is very emotional and incredible. you could stare at it for hours and not get tired. The way the lighting is set up, the poses and the mood it creates, the emotions that you feel when looking at it, everything is just perfection. Now this movie may have been the biggest inspiration for my project. Perfume: story of a murderer. This movie showed everything you needed to see. The book is better because it goes into a lot more detail. The reason I chose to watch Perfume is because the protagonist is a lonely man who wanted nothing but love. He had everything, but love. What was interesting to me that everyone he killed, had a special beauty. Those women couldn’t love him. He killed them, so no one else could be with them. As if he was a collector of fragile beauty. His Finest perfume could do everything, but he could not love or be loved like everyone else. I also went to Victoria&Albert Museum where they had collections of perfume bottles. The reason I was looking at perfume bottled is that when you smell charmingly, you manipulate people loving you and paying you attention. Almost like a magnet where its attracting souls that are in need of love or maybe you are need of that love. I found this exhibition called extinction by Mike Nelson and I thought it looked quite interesting, so I went to have a look around. As soon as I entered the exhibition, I fell in love with it. There was a room filled with sand and abandoned tyres that were ripped apart. I felt isolated and deserted when I looked at it. It gave me an impression of one sided love where a guy spoke his true feelings to a girl and she rejects him like it was nothing, so he just stood there, waiting for her in the sand, hoping she would come back. But she never did.... It was full of sadness and romance.

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For my clothing reference, the reason I was looking at Henry Fuseli because a lot of the females in the paintings are wearing flowy garment and I love the silhouette in it as well. A lot of people don’t know this, but Henry once loved a girl and asked to marry her, but she rejected him so most of his paintings are inspired by his one lost lover he could never have. I also looked at 17th century Paris clothing because I believe Paris is a very passionate and romantic city. Whether it’s food, the music, the art, everything about it is romantic. Also, the perfume movie was based in the 1700, so that’s another reason why I was looking at that era. In the images, you can see that every garment has ruffles and gathering and it is the shape of an hourglass woman’s body. I also love looking at the old times, how fashion was in the past because I believe that in order to create a future for fashion, you need to know about the past of it. One of my course teacher also gave me a book called historical fashion in detail, so I was looking for references from that book and it helped me a lot through my design stage.

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This is my final collection, and these are the fabrics that I chose to work with and would have used them in real life fashion show. I don’t know why but from the start I was sure what colours I needed to use for this collection. The deep green and dark purple colour spoke of royalty and lost love. To me, they felt very wealthy in love and full of passion. The sky blue reminded me of the ocean, how lonely it is but also how powerful. Most of the silhouettes are from my clothing reference, but some of the silhouettes are from the perfume bottles I drew. I would have used a lot of ruffles and gathering for this project because it is very romantic and extravagant.

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Experimenting is one of my favorite things to do and it makes me more creative because then I can turn the pages around and look for a silhouette that I couldn’t see before. When I started this project, I wasn’t really sure how to create responses to my research but then something hit me. I thought of creating a perfume bottle, shape of an hourglass body because that’s a very attractive body shape and its quite romantic. I used colours like blue, red, purple and green. All the colours that I thought speak romance and passion to me. I am not super happy with it because it looks like a mess, but still it was an early-stage response. One of the teachers gave me a piece of fabric because she thought it related to my idea and I started experimenting with it. It looked a lot similar to chiffon, but it was a lot thicker, much more fragile and it is used to clean paint from metal plates. I lost the fabric and didn’t take any photos of what it looked like, so I can’t show it. I started experimenting by dipping the fabric into different ink colours, putting it on a white piece of paper, applying pressure on it so the paper can absorb the fabric texture and I left it to dry. The blue one is where I developed into my digital print for my garment and the others, I created funky silhouettes of perfume bottles. After some experiments with funky perfume bottles, I started drawing actual shapes of perfume bottles and I used these drawings, screen printed them and used foil paper to experiment what different ideas I could come up with. I ended up using screen printing perfume bottles on my garment because you can see the bottles clearly from screen printing. I did a lot of perfume bottles drawing, sadly I lost quite a few of them and didn't take any images to show you it. I also did photoshoot where the inspiration was Gucci campaign and Robert Stivers. The reason I did is because I wanted to create my own meaning of unrequited love and show those emotions through a female. It looks as if she is trapped in her own prison that she created. It looks very melancholy and romantic which  is what I was aiming for. For the photoshoot, I didn’t edit any of them at all because I like my images to be as original as possible. When I was taking those photos, I was moving my camera around constantly rather than having it at one place and the shutter speed was really low as well because only then you can have images that look blurry, sad and interesting without editing them. I also did some fabric manipulation. I was looking at ruffles and gathering because in ruffles and gathering, the thread is very tight and together, so I thought that's quite romantic and they give a dramatic and extravagant look to the garment. The technique I used to make gathering, I implemented that onto my final garment where I made gathered 17th century puffy sleeves.

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After some experimentations, I came up with this final outcome. I chose this digital print that I created because it looks melancholy and full of sorrow. It reminds me of ocean. How lonely it is and how no one is there for the ocean. The wide neck and puffy shoulder was an inspiration from the 17th century Paris clothing I was being influenced by. The back is really low because I wanted it to be quite romantic because showing your back is quite a personal body part. I had three empty perfume bottles that my friends gave me and I broke them apart and superglued them on the fabric. The reason I did that is because the heart has been broken many times and I believe the broken bottles replicates that in some ways. Because the print looks like ocean, it also represents being at the beach, the perfume bottles just being at the shore, by themselves and no one is there to pick them up and give them the love that they deserve.