Ossie Clark

Ossie Clark.

Ossie Clark was born  Raymond Clark in Liverpool 9th June 1942. The name Ossie came from when he was evacuated to Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire during the Second World War. Ossie studied at Manchester Art School in 1960. In 1962 Ossie Clark was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London. Where he graduated three years later – the only student to have been awarded a  First Class honours degree. Clark had impressive cutting skills and had the extraordinary productive collaboration with his wife the textile designer Celia Birtwell. He was spotted by Vogue's Marit Allen who printed a picture of Ossie and a model wearing one of his graduation pop art dresses and were photographed by David Bailey( photographer)in 1965.

 Dressing coat 1970. Ossie Clark.
 Celia Birtwell's print "floating Daisy."

Ossie Clark

Twiggy wearing Ossie Clark's outfit.

Wedding dress 1971. Clark said wedding dresses
"the most vital part is the back". Here the back features
dramatic fun pleating falling from a raised waistline.

Ossie Clark  1985.

.

 Dress 1971. This dress
was cleverly pieced together
from two different lengths of fabric,
a small multicoloured floral print and bolder red poppy print. They coil round the figure into continuous strands. Print by Celia Birtwell.

 From the mid 1960s to the mid-1970s Ossie Clark dressed the famous and the fashionable in showstoppers outfits. But since then, Clark's glamorous lifestyle and tragic death in 1996  have overshadowed his importance as a dress designer.

1969

1970   Chiffon dress.

 The back of a wool coat 1970.

 Strawberry embroidered lounge suit
1971

 Snake skin bomber jacket 1967.

 Costings for a outfit 1973 – 74.

Ossie Clark in the 1960s – 1970s one of the most influential dress designers of that time. He made Mick Jagger's stage outfits and Jaggers wife Bianca wore the most extravagant  designs of his.
Ossie Clark's vintage designs are still very sought-after and a lot of them are privately owned.  V&A  had a exhibition showing his designs in 2003. I just wished that I could have gone to see that exhibition because in this 1960s we all wanted a Ossie Clark's dress !

Unit X another meeting.

 By using Facebook we contacted each of the group to arrange a meeting last Tuesday. One of the media boys couldn't attend the meeting and sent a text.  At the meeting there was just the three of us the Leahna, Safia and me. We met up to see how each of us are proceeding with the 175 Manchester Art School brief.

Leahna discussing the brief in the group meeting.

Safia checking our Facebook for messages. 

Me thinking about my part of the brief.

 As usual we had a good meeting and we knew what direction each of us proceeding with. Unfortunately one of the other media guys didn't turn up! But that didn't stop us from discussing the forthcoming exhibition. I think we are fortunate that the three of us communicate and work together easily. Later we had a tutorial to explain what each of us are doing and how we are intermingling our work with each other. So each of us will have something that the others have done to show in the final exhibition.

Anna Douglas

Attended the Anna Douglas lecture about collaboration.

Collaboration-  work with combination - this is the meaning in the dictionary.

Anna Douglas- collaboration- means awareness of working together.

Working together is about the ability to communicate, problem-solving, brainstorming ideas, be generous with others and not keep all good ideas to oneself. Some people need to learn how to work together and for others it comes easily. It is putting one's ego aside, which is not easy for some people as they always want to be in charge. So, it is important to respect other's ideas, other ways of working and  having  the desire to work together. Once everybody knows what they're doing, breakdown the task into modules and then the individuals can work on their own.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
The lecture was about how artist's showing their work, need to work with other professionals to set up and record their work. In any gallery exhibition how many people would it take to set the exhibition up? The artist with his work, the manager of the gallery, decorator to paint the gallery the colour required for the exhibition and the person who is actually going to hang the exhibits on the wall or place them onto the stands and that's only the start! Think of all the people working behind the scenes of an art gallery and without these people the art gallery could not function.
I think Anna Douglas's lecture was interesting in the fact that working together is not always an easy option. I think anyone who is thinking of working together as a group and takes note of the above ideas, I think it would help them to work in a group successfully. Many thanks to to Anna Douglas for the lecture.

Object Pattern Making.

The Object Pattern making Workshop.

The  group ready to start the object pattern making workshop. We needed cartridge paper, masking tape, scissors, craft knife, ruler/square/pattern master, pencil, black felt tip pen and a camera. As you can see I have bought a glass bottle to cover.

Cut the masking tape into strips and place onto a cutting board.

Cut the strips in half using the ruler.

 Mark one of the narrow strips the black line along the centre
and place onto the object to be covered.

 Take the next strip and place it alongside the marked strip as in the picture
above.

 Keep wrapping object from top to bottom until fully wrapped.
Then start wrapping the masking tape around the object as
in the photograph above.

 When the object is fully wrapped ( two layers) as above.
Then mark where you're going to cut the tape off. See picture
above.

 Mark from the bottom of the object first with pencil and then
with the fine black felt pen.

 Mark the object with lines as shown in the photograph above.
 

 Mark lines with numbers so you can rejoin
the pieces together after they have been cut.

 Now with a craft knife you start cutting along the lines
through the masking tape which can be quite difficult
because it's quite thick in places so you need a sharp
craft knife.

 When you finish cutting out the shapes flatten them as much
as you can. Then place them onto a piece of paper and
cut them out. To finish the process you need to place the
cut out paper shapes onto pattern paper, making an allowance
all around the seams. To recreate the object in fabric you then cut
 the pattern shapes out in fabric, sew the seams and hey presto, a cover
for your object !!!

Pattern Cutting Zero Waste.

  This lecture was about developing patterns and losing the 15/20% of cutting waste of the fashion industry as this waste goes into landfill sites. Designers are looking at ways to reuse the waste, creating new garments or using the scraps as a form of embellishment.
Designers are now looking at the historical patterns/styles where they would wrap the fabric round the body using a geometric shape. By using geometric block patterns this reduces seams and the amount of sewing causing the fabric to drape on the body.
These are a few designers who are using this technique.
Holly McQuillan. She uses several patterns drawn into a piece of fabric.
Julia Lumsden.  A student of Holly McQuillan above. She designs menswear and I quote  "through the pattern comes the design" and uses the scraps of fabric as a form of embellishment.
David Telfer. He uses minimal seam cutting so there's less seams to sew and again block cutting.
Joe O'Neill. He is a high Street designer who also is into zero waste, again uses block cutting.
Most of the designers are now looking at zero waste when designing fashion and their idea's behind this is, pattern shapes, fabric manipulation, wraparound, so the excess fabric drapes elegantly and the geometric shape fits beautifully on the figure.
Pattern versus design, the pattern shape dictates the design of the garment but in this process it is often the fabric that dictates the design ! The difficulties are, what hangs well, compromising is the key,  fabric manipulation and evaluating the pattern at each stage.
I listened to this lecture with great interest, because in the past I have made my own clothes, so I know about manipulating fabric and design but I feel that even using these block patterns you are driven by the fabric you use. Using a different fabric like linen you would still have waste by having to cut the fabric into a shape and not into blocks. By cutting the linen into blocks you would still have to shape the blocks as the linen would not drape! I'm not sure that this idea really works because you would have to use flowing soft fabric and the amount of fabric that actually goes into the making of the garment to make it drape is more than the fabric you would lose by cutting it into shape! So my final conclusion is, initially you would have less waste in landfills but looking at it long term when the garment comes to the end of it's life, you would end up with more fabric in the landfill because you used more fabric in the first place !!

Special collection exhibition of Mr Dedman's Victory Suit.

The Booklet.

I went up to special collections at the University for enquiry and much to my delight I came across this exhibition:  Mr Dedman's Victory suit: Intimate stories of make do and mend.
What a delightful exhibition this is. I would most certainly recommend the textile students to go and have a look. It's about World War II in England and also the clothes rationing in Australia.

The back of the booklet.

Crochet.

A crochet shawl.

War time Journals on show.

Patterns.

Television installations. 

Posters

Panties and stockings.

Dress patterns

Another of the exhibits.

This is small selection of the exhibition. There is a  darning basket belonging to Beatrice (1935-1945)  skirt made from patchwork squares maker unknown. Handbag covered with small felt flowers. Apron made of patchwork hexagons with a flowered waistband, again maker unknown. And utility stockings these are fascinating to look at and they still have the utility mark stamped on the foot in black. There are many other objects to see and it gives you a glimpse into the women's life during the world War II.

Unit X The Art School.

During my research of Manchester Art School, I wanted to know what the original colours for the art school  were. So I went to special collections and asked if they could help me and a very nice gentleman called Jeremy Parrett said yes, he was sure there was a document available and would email the documents to me.  Below is the image of 175 names I will be using for Unit X.

 This is a list of the staff andAlumni from 1938. 

 And this is the document that was sent to me from special collections.

This is from the " Calendar of the Municipal School of Art"  1913 – 1914

and this is the earliest reference to school colours that can be found.

 These are the colours that I will be using as part of unit X. Unless of course they

do not fit in to what I am doing !

Some more Unit X

 Jouer Group we all met at Hilton House to make some more posters and to finalise the ideas we have for unit X. We are very fortunate to all get on well as a group and appreciate each other's qualities that they bring with them. At the moment we are only meeting once a week as we all know what we are going to do. Leahna, Safia and myself have decided to work from home as we think we will be far more productive. Leahna and I both travel each day. I spend three hours plus a day to get to Manchester Art School and I feel I can spend more time on unit X and Blogger than I would if I came into Manchester.

 Above are the photographs I have taken at our last meeting of our group working in Hilton House. There is Leahna, Safia,  Jacob, Ollie and me behind the camera.

Unit X

Over Easter I spent some of my time doing 175 research and recorded them into a sketchbook. I have to say, I found loads of information on 175 – did you know the University of Westminster is 175 years old  and you can't score 175 with three darts on a dart board! Also it takes three hours for a train to travel 175 miles at a average speed of 58:33MPH and 175 
anniversary is called seploqiunquecentennial....... say that !!!!!!

 The Beetle 175 turbo

175  Portobello Road.

 This is what 175 staples look like.

 This is what 175  knots  look like tied into string

 So, I've got loads of useless information about 175