Designer fashion ranges on the high street

The recent ranges launched in high street shops by fashion designers such as Stella McCartney at H&M and Giles Deacon at New Look have allowed people to get a taste of designer clothes without having to pay designer prices.
I think the ranges are obviously well designed but the designers have had to consider the intracacy of the pieces, bearing in mind the budget. The materials used are another factor and the time it takes for a garment to be made would also have to be taken into account. When it comes to Haute Couture I think the quality of not only the materials used but the quality of design and the careful craftsmanship are second to none and that's why they are so much more expensive than anything on the high street. Maybe you can get high end design at affordable prices but I don't think you really get the quality without the designer price tag.

Clarissa Hulse

Clarissa Hulse likes to use silhouettes of plants in much of her work. Her work reminds me of some of my own because I have also used silhouettes in a similar way.

Cushions


Lampshades


Morning Glory wallpaper - Berry


Meadow wallpaper - Peppermint

You can always pick up a bargain at Primark and I have to admit I rarely think about where the things I buy actually come from and why they're so cheap. Some would say that Primark's full of cheap trash but is this really the case? I don't think it's cheap because the clothes are poor quality. I think it's because a lot of them are made by people living in poor areas of the world whose only way of making a living is by working long hours in a sweat shop. Companies in the UK can buy clothes very cheaply from the factory owners in places like India who pay their workers very little for what they do, in order to make a profit.

I think we need to know more about where our clothes come from because if people continue to buy cheap clothes then the demand for them will remain and the sweat shops will carry on as they are. On the other hand you could look at it as a good thing because as long as the factories are going the people who work in them are working and earning money. If the factories closed maybe they wouldn't be able to find other jobs.
Generally though, I think Fair Trade clothing is the way forward. At the moment much of the Fair Trade clothing around isn't particularly stylish but I think if the designs were more modern and trendy then more people would opt for Fair Trade, including the younger teenage market.
This BBC site is dedicated to eco-friendly fashion: www.bbc.co.uk/thread

Tilleke Schwarz

During my last project I found the work of Tilleke Schwarz quite inspiring. I like her illustrative style, her use of colour and the quality of line in her embroidery. I also like how the images and words are combined to make up a sort of story.

Shipwreck!

Due to storms in January, a ship carrying 2000 tonnes of timber sank off the coast of Dorset. The wood was washed-up on beaches across Sussex, including my home town, Brighton. They even closed some of the beaches to stop people stealing the planks. When I saw the pictures on the Internet they just looked surreal, and I wanted to be there to experience it myself. I read that people had used the planks to write big messages on the beach but unfortunately I couldn't find any pictures of this.
Brighton beach

Brighton beach

Worthing

Brighton

Postcard Messages

I have a bit of thing for unusual and interesting postcards and I like reading what people have written on them. When I read a postcard it's like discovering little clues about a person and their life, especially if it's a really old card. I just find things like that really interesting.

Bizarro Postcards

Brighton

Indigo: A Blue to Dye For

I recently went to an exhibition in Brighton called 'Indigo: A Blue to Dye For' which displayed textiles from all over the world that had been dyed in some way with indigo. Indigo dye is one of the oldest and most widely used dyes in the world. The exhibition included arts, crafts and design as well as fashion and the pieces had come from places including Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Indigo is famously used for dyeing denim so there were quite a few items of denim clothing on display, including a replica made by Levi's of the oldest jeans ever discovered. They were found in a mine and dated back to around 1890! I was quite surprised because they looked really modern, especially with the distressed look they had been given.
There was also a piece by William Morris who often used indigo in his work.
It was interesting to see a model of an old indigo factory as well, which showed the workers standing in huge baths of dye mixing it. Also, something I didn't know was that there are many plants that contain indigo and it comes in different forms such as tablets and balls.
The range of textiles demonstrated a lot of different dyeing techniques too, such as batik, tie-dye, shibori, discharge dyeing and resist techniques. Overall I enjoyed the exhibition as it had some beautiful textile pieces in it, and it was informative.