Colourful Coast

As winner of a live brief competition, I was commissioned to design two textile panels for Carnoustie Golf Course. They are currently situated within the new club house building.

Inspiration

I chose to explore the theme ‘Geology’ – looking at rock structures, coasts, stones and beaches.  More specifically I focused my collection of source drawings on Auchmithie beach, exploring mainly the rocks and colours of the cliffs surrounding the beach.   Most of my inspiration came from looking at the rocks on the cliffs but as a contrast I was also inspired by some old boats lying on the beach.   The surfaces and contrast in colours were interesting. Combining the colours and structures from the rocks and boats was what I used to develop my design ideas.  I loved the contrast in colours and developed my work with colour being my central focus. 

Below are two photographs showing my  textile panels in position. There is one panel in the Ladies changing room and one in the Men's changing room.

Detailed shots of both panels

There are various woven patterns used in this fabric

This image shows different colour blends within the fabric

Capturing texture 

Creating Sustainable Designs

JUNKY STYLING


I came across a website called Junky Styling. They create individual, unique, timeless one-off pieces recycled from second hand clothing. The business is all about creating sustainable designs and promoting ethical consumerism.
Everything they produce is recycled, deconstructed, recut and transformed into a new garment. All the items are different, no two are the same. They are trying to inspire their customers to look at and think again about disgarding clothes and get them transformed into a one -off piece. The customers themselves can be involved in the re- designing process of their piece.
The eco fashion business promote ethical consumerism, they have happy employees in a good working environment and there is no pollution involved in the production process. Everything used and displayed in the shop is either recycled, Fair Trade, made from organic materials or ethically produced.
They are also considering training up local communities to create and recycle like themselves.
I have shown some examples of their one off recycled pieces. I think it is a way forward for the future regarding sustainable, ecological, ethical and organic fashion.

Eco Furniture and Interior Designs

Lucy Renshaw is a designer who creates one -off furniture interior pieces, at the same time tackling environmental issues by using recycled materials to create vibrant, exciting new products. Her work is inspired by her travels. She uses recycled materials, embellishing them with embroidery and stitching and other craft techniques which are all ethically produced and eco- friendly.
I thought Lucy's work was interesting and relevant as our business idea doesn't just consider second hand clothing but also incorporates creating interior products and assessories from recycled materials.
Below is a collection of some of her colourful, sustainable one -off pieces

"Rags 2 Riches" - Group Meeting

We addressed the main issues from the chapters on Designtrust website, which we need to consider when pulling our business idea together. I read a chapter on 'Buyers and Galleries'. It stresses how important it is to never stop selling yourself, products and services when trying to start up a business. A buyer's priorities and responsibilities are crucial within a business.
Customers' needs mustbe satisfied and sales and profits mustbe achieved. It's all about identifying consumer patterns and future trends. The display of stock is just as important when trying to sell to potential customers. I also found the chapter ' Negotiating Skills' useful. It talks about techniques and ideas to help with preparing a presentation or idea. It is better to be over prepared and have samples and photographs of your product to help keep in control,so showing enthusiasm and passion for your service/product. If it is a group presentation it suggests identifying the roles of each colleague to keep it as proffessional and organised as possible. It also states that the clients you are presenting your idea to will probably have objections towards some ideas,so it would be useful to have some possible answers for them.
For the next meeting I will have photographs of some scraps and fabrics for our business blog, some research on different blog styles, eg. Bertie Brown have an attractive laid out blog page which helps to sell the business. For our presentation, we intend to show examples, so the idea is visually represented as well. I own a bag made up of reused materials which would be good to show.

Next time we meet we are hoping to design our business logo. Suggestions were to incorporate pieces of fabric into the logo or to keep it quite natural and eco looking. The logo below is an example from an upcycling website. It explains the logo was put together by collecting items that represent different areas of upcycling from furniture to fashion and art.




We also intend to produce a business card, an idea suggested on Designtrust websiteas a way of promoting.
We have already created a 100 word rationale summarising our business idea.



Take a look at this website.
http://smoketreejunctionantiques.com/
Smoketree junction is an eco- friendly, eco-chic experience. VINTAGE UPCYCLING IN A MODERN WORLD
A quote from them -
"Things we find are not only re-used, re-purposed, re-imagined, re-designed, but "UPCYCLED" into funky, clever, and practical new art."

I searched for different exisiting upcycling logos to see the variety in styles.

Continued Group Discussion...

At the latest group meeting we discussed the next steps to push our business idea forward. Each person in the team wasgiven a task, which involved reading 4 chapters each from the Designtrust website on how to start up a business. We hope to push our business idea forward and focus it more.
For the next meeting we hope to produce a business rationale, a logo and a summary of what each chapter on the website includes.
The title of the business is going to be 'Rags 2 Riches'. The literal title will let customers know exactly what kind of business it is and we hope it will attract a particular clientele, in this case a post consumer.

Michaela and I put a poster together to illustrate our business idea more clearly.

Progress on project

At the last meeting we started to brainstorm ideas on what our business concept could be. Everyone agreed to work around the idea of 'upcycling' which would attract a certain clientele. I brought an image from an eco fashion book along to the meeting. A company called 'From Somewhere' design using pre consumer waste such as scraps and production ends to create a collection of one- off pieces for high end fashion. 'From Somewhere' is all about rescuing textile waste as a design solution to an environmental problem.
After researching such companies we decided to base our business around a similar idea.
The group has so far decided that the business would be a shop off the main high street, where the customers would bring along waste material, which would otherwise go to the landfills. This waste material could consist of several different materials including textile waste. With these materials the idea is to combine different materials together to create a 'new' garment, for example, creating an unique pillow out of old clothing of random patterns and colours. This means the customers are being environmentally conscious as well as having a unique street style. For every piece of waste brought in by a customer, they will recieve points on a card, ultimately getting a reduction off of a bought item. Introducing an incentive will hopefully attract several types of customers.We would create an app on the ticket to link customers to our blog telling them everything about the item , so helping us gain trust and a loyal customer base. We also considered introducing workshops for customers to create their own items from recycled waste. In addition,people could bring a piece for alteration.

I did some research into how successful upcycling acutally is in the street. Upcycling gets lots of street credit, as it addresses social challenges that the fashion industry is currently facing. Upcycling is a design solution for the fashion industry. The materials are readily available and it also helps reduce the factories' high supply demands Upcycling reduces textile waste, which is a potential solution to low supply of raw materials and also having to produce something from scratch.

A quote I found online ' Upcycling is a sustainable solution to overconsumption'.

We are still working on a title for the business but ideas so far are:

Crafty Remakes

Thread Fashion

Rip and Stitch

Scraps and Rags

The Peoples Fashion

Remix

Rethread

We are still working on the service and will update soon with the a potenital business idea.

Upcycling Shop

Chair made out of recycled shoes

Post Consumerism

Our Group Poster :-

At our group meeting we created a profile on what we thought a post consumer was. A post consumer is someone who doesnt put a 'price tag' on something, they look at the sentimental value rather than the cost. Post consumerism is a fairly new way of thinking, indicating a shift in attitude ,where sustaining the environment is a priority. It's all about changing attitudes to save the planet in the future.
A post consumer would buy a more expensive item as the quality and therefore how long it will last are given more consideration.Something 'cheap' could be thrown away after a short time, but a quality item could eventually be recycled eg. 'dolly rocker' which is shown in the poster above, is constructed from recycled materials and is very sellable. Colourful items of clothing from markets, charity shops and jumble sales can be collected and then reconstituted into new garments.

Reconstructed clothing from recycled items

Post consumers also consider whether the product is ethically produced and eco - friendly, so they tend to go for items which are green branded, such as Fair Trade produced goods. Even although Fair Trade goods can be more expensive, post consumers are more concerned about the quality and durability. As clothes from Primark are not ethically produced and the quality isn't that good , post consumers wouldn't shop there. They tend not to follow trends or persuasive advertisments, instead they stop and think before they buy. Post consumers try to encourage more reusing and recycling and less buying.
Being environment conscious,post consumers are also more likely to walk or cycle rather than use transport, as they are concerned about the effect of pollution on the environment.

In the poster we have given a few examples of celebrities who follow this way of thinking- Russell Brand, Jack Johnston and Natalie Portman. Post consumers also like to give to charitable causes eg. Jack Johnston helped underprivileged children in New Zealand to get eco - friendly bikes.