Character

I picked this project because I honestly thought it would be easier but it turned out not at all. I initially thought the project was about creating a character and then doing a photoshoot in the end. Well, even thought that is the main goal of the project, it had to be a modern character, not historical, and that was my big fat mistake. 

So, I started this project with the idea of making my character a Suffragette, I recently watched the TV show Mr. Selfridge and in one of the episodes they talk a lot about them, so I thought it would be a good idea. I starting researching online and watching documentaries on Youtube and learned they were quite the rebels and were arrested and destroyed public property and everything. Really interesting stuff. My character was called "Millicent Ashby" - named after two real Suffragette names I found on Google. She was going to be a widow whose life changed after the death of her husband, she would try to find a job but because she was quite old and a woman she couldn't find anything. Moreover, one of her friends talked to her about this amazing group of women fighting for justice and women's vote. So she joins them and everything and gets arrested and is forced feed. 

I researched about modern designers and was going to do a photoshoot in a modern style but with suffragette theme. BUT then, after all this research I learned it need to create a modern character.  

So I panicked a little bit and went to Pinterest for a little research. I quickly came up with the idea of creating a woman, she would be around 30, a freelance PR and she would be married. Her name is Ower Downs and she is Korean Born British married to a English man called James Downs. 

DETAIL

For this Detail project, we had to select a Menswear designer whose collection had inspiration in another historical period. During our briefing we heard about Thom Browne and I instantly liked his collection and knew I wanted to pick him. The goal is pick a designer and create a lookbook with his clothes. We must be creative and think outside the box here. We saw some videos of Prada's lookbook as well. It was a video, you have the clothes and the feeling of the collection. Quite interesting, but I didn't want to do a video. It's not my strongest suit and I knew I wouldn't have enough time to get it to perfection. Something I heard during the brief made my mind about what I wanted to do from the beginning: An interactive lookbook, initially the plan was to be an App. You have access to the collection and the original idea of the designer and what he wanted to do but then, you also could play around with the clothes and create your own look with your own identity. Because sometimes we see clothes on the runaway and we like them, but it's not quite the way we would wear it or want it to be. So in this case, people would have access to that. 

My main struggle was: I have NO idea how to create an App, like none at all and the project was only two weeks long, so no time at all to at least the basics. So instead, I was going to create the idea and how everything was going to look like and act the closest as possible to the real thing. I could do that. 

So I started looking at his collection and how his lookbook look like. It was pretty simple and boring, in my humble opinion. So after checking that, I studied his collection and his inspirations, I saw clearly Dandy and some Victorian elements as well. Then I read the Style.com review and I learned he was inspired by an exhibition at the Met about Mourning in 20th Century. His show is all about death and funeral, actually it is a funeral. It starts with a guy walking around spaces and then he dies. After that people come to give their last goodbye. One by one they come and look and go. Snow is falling and a very sad music plays in the background. But there is beauty to it, and that's exactly what Thom Browne saw it. 

So, after researching his collection I went back to my research and to the Dandies, I had quite interesting conversation with one of my tutors who argued with me that Dandies were Edwardians and not Victorians, but I later found out that there are versions for every period of time. The Victorian dandy is Beau Brummell and his Cravat. The Edwardian is more tie and white shirt, something that I thought i was closer to the collection. 

During my research I came across a christmas card from Liberty's. It was the store and lights all over it. I thought that was beautiful and then I came up with the idea of creating a street in an Edwardian architecture, with lights on it so the person could click on them and go somewhere else. I got inspired by the Harry Potter website, whose idea is to be interactive and playful. Perfect combination. 

So I researched online Edwardian architecture and houses and went to London to check some places and take pictures. The I finally found a house, tiny but full of details but enough to allow to crop it on Photoshop and put in sequence in a street. I did and afterwards I put a sky and the street and snow - I got inspired by the show, where they have snow falling - and the lights of the show. It's dark but you still can see 3 lights in there. 

After creating the street and the beginning, the rest was to create the intro (with informations about the collection), the collection (with the images from the designer) and the create tab ( where you could create whatever look you wanted). The initial idea for the "create tab" was to have a man dressed in edwardian undergarments, but that turned out not feasible in the end and I replaced with the first image of the show and once you screw the thumbnail the image changes. Giving the person a chance to create as many outfits as she pleases.

POLITICS AND FASHION pt.4

So I did some research on fashion editorials that were related to BDSM or bondage, there were not many of them and they were quite subtle, fashionable and have details are obvious. My main concern and struggle was "how am I supposed to put such graphic theme into a photoshoot and not be too obvious or too graphic?". 

My line of thinking starts with the UK government banning porn, and most of the things that are on the list are affecting women's pleasure, such as female ejaculation and face-sitting (something that is done mostly by a female dominatrix as a way of showing power and dominance), most of the websites that are being targeted are fem-dom and gay porn. So, if women can't ejaculate or enjoy the sex and have pleasure, they are there just as slaves to give pleasure. So I decided to use that line of thinking. Women as tools, instruments. So, my tutor gave me the insight of looking at an artists called Allen Jones and his famous chair, hat hanging and table. Where he uses women as pieces of furniture. So I went to the exhibition at the Royal Academy to check it out. Quite nice actually, a bit weird. 

So, I decided to use this as my photoshoot, I learned that "forniphilia" is what we call the psychological condition of seeing women as furniture. So I'll research on that. 

POLITICS AND FASHION pt.3

Not much happened today. I continued my research and found some interesting facts. According to a piece I read on The Guardian, the websites that are being targeted are mostly gay and fem-dom (websites that have BSDM porn where the woman is dominant and man the submissive or "slave"). Which for me made this more sexist than I thought, and according to another piece the BSDM or heavy sexy content is mostly paid, so how does that fit into the "protect the children" scheme? I mean, I know kids can get credit cards from their parents and use it, but it's unlikely they'll go straight to BSDM, unless they already have it them. The thing is, again, most of the banned content are related to the pleasure of women, even in activities that women are the dominant. There must be some other reason behind it. And moreover, if they want to protect kids from violent sex, what about violent video games? or tv shows or films? Shouldn't they be banned as well? 

So, I did more research and I came up with a couple of isolated ideas for my shoot. I know I want to focus on the idea of women not being properly represented into porn and suffering with this law. So, I'm putting them together before I say something in here, otherwise will only look as lost ideas. 

POLITICS AND FASHION pt. 2: THE MUSEUMS

Today we went to two museums: The Design Museum to see the exhibition "Women Fashion Power" and it's basically about powerful women in several different fields and how women changed themselves and society and how they used fashion as a tool. From the painful corsets to the "Le Smoking" of Yves Saint Laurent. 

This exhibition was designed by Zara Hadid, a famous architect (only women architect to win a Pulitzer award) and many powerful and successful women are featured. From different eras as well. 

I particularly enjoyed this exhibition, I felt it really expressed how women evolved and how their ways of protesting and making their voice heard changed throughout the years. Those painful clothes from the Edwardian era, corsets, etc, things that made women stuck inside their own clothes, I can imagine how difficult it must've been to breathe wearing those. Clothes that, today would make no sense in a busy life like contemporary women lead. 

Something that I thought was interesting was a piece stating that Edna Woolman Chase had to fight her way up from the mail room to the position of Editor-in-chief of British Vogue. I've read books before saying how magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar helped women to express themselves. Other thing that I've noticed that always helped women to feel powerful regardless the time are shoes. From Roger Vivier shoes to Manolo Blahnik to Christian Louboutin.  For each time there was one shoe that represented how they are an extremely useful tool. 

After that we had a choice of going to Tate Modern or Somerset House. I went to Somerset because I wanted to check the Blondie exhibition. Totally worth it and I believe Debbie Harris she should be included into the other exhibition, she was a pioneer at her time and changed loads for women who wants to sing punk/rock (maybe she was there but I didn't see it). Blondie was one of the first bands to have lyrics about women being powerful and chasing men instead of being chased or waiting for Mr. Right. So much worth it. The exhibition showed pictures of Debbie Harris and other members of the band, in tours or with other artists. 

During this exhibition I came across with this picture: 

The headline caught my attention and I believe is something I could use with my theme. "Women are just slaves", female ejaculation is considered "life-threating" so the only point for women to have intercourse is to give pleasure to men, because their ejaculation is not "life-threating". But this is still just an idea, I'm still working on it. 

Oh, and that's my funny selfie: 

FASHION AND POLITICS

We're back from holidays and our next project, still for UNIT 5, 6 it's about "Politics and Fashion".The idea is too pick a theme that is related to politics and that matter, such as animal testing, how fashion exploits people in poor countries to produce fast and cheap fashion, sexuality, among others. We had a nice discussion and it was quite interesting to exchange points of view in such contemporary and controversial themes. 

My theme for this project is "UK banned porn". Last year, the UK government banned a couple of activities from porn, they are not allowed to be produced, sold or seem in the UK. Activities such as: face-sitting, fisting, canning, humiliation and female ejaculation are considered "life-threating" and should not be seem by people, specially by children, who according to them are the main reason why this stupid law exists. 

The problem is the law itself only ban things are produced INSIDE THE UK, but you still have access to porn websites from outside. So what's the point anyway? Children will find ways of cheating the system or they could just go to websites that are not from the UK. Another issue is the sexist vibe of this law, why is it only FEMALE ejaculation considered life-threating and not MALE as well? It's a natural body fluid, it's not dangerous. And, why can't a lady sit on a guy's face for risk of asphyxiation but women chocking on penises are still aloud? It's also a way of asphyxiating. 

The matter goes deeper because who is this law protecting? Verbal and physical abuse is also forbidden even if consensual. So you can't even decide for yourselves. The parents have the task to raise and select what their kids are going to watch not the government, it's intrusive and hurts their own economy. According to PornHub website, 200% of viewers of spanking are British, so does that make sense? And what about movies and music videos that are verbally and sexually abusive? 50 shades of grey is coming out in two months, the film's got everything that is prohibited, is it going to be censured? Or banned? I don't think so. 

So these are some initial thoughts about the theme. Still a lot to go on. 

GUY BOURDIN pt.3

The day of the shoot. Everything was ready to go, I confirmed with the photographer the day before, the models confirmed, got the outfit, the shoes, the jewellery, I documented everything and it was ready to go...until I went to university and everything blew up in my face. The lights I booked the day before the guy said I needed some "risk assessment" from a tutor, my photographer never showed up or answered the phone and also my second model. It took me around 2 to 3 hours to get the risk assessment and when I finally managed to get it, I went home with one model, and there were no power cable at all. So I couldn't use the light. It was one of those days when Murphy's law was working on the highest mode:"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong in the worse way possible".So I had to improvise and use lamps I had around the house -  something that gave my photos a massive white circle which was not good at all. 

So with one model I had to change the whole story and instead of a murder scene, a murder choosing her weapons, a murder and a dead body. Three photos, three different things. 

In the end, I put the blue skirt to contrast with the shoes and give a detail of colour. What it turned out was not the best choice in the end. The teachers didn't like my photos (the ones who helped me yes and gave me good criticism) and I didn't get a place at Ravensbourne at this point. It was sad for me because my research and the build up of the concept I believe it was good, at least it was related to the idea. But everything went wrong in the end. Maybe it was for the best, who knows? I learned a lot with my mistakes that week and at least I learned a lot with Bourdin and his work. That's worth it. 

GUY BOURDIN pt.2

After deciding my story, a murder scene, I went after the clothes: a dead body with black clothes and colourful shoes, tights and no face. Three outfits for three different parts of the kill. A murder, just the legs, colourful shoes and a murder weapon. Three in this case: A knife, a shoe and a piece of wood stick. Initially I thought about putting fake blood or even just drops of it,but one of my tutors suggested me it could look to trashy and that less is more and I should be careful. He said Bourdin tried to use it once and not even him could make it look good.  Point taken. So I took off the fake blood idea and decided to only have the weapons without blood and just suggest the idea of murder. 

I wanted two colours to pop up, red and yellow and maybe blue. Just like i've seen in the first picture. My initial thought was to put a red background and a carpet. Very bright red and just a simple carpet. To have more inspiration I went back to exhibition to see if I could find something to help me, and I also went to the Viviane Sassen exhibition at The Photographer's Gallery, I heard her photos were quite surreal so I went there for more inspiration. From the Bourdin's exhibit I realised that in some of the pictures, the colours were not so obvious, they pop up by themselves and there is not much effort. The ambiance is also simple and speak for itself. That made me think if my over the top colours were too over the top. So I could, instead of using a really bright red background, use a pale "house" background, a normal house with a carpet and a normal wall. Just like in Newton's picture. But didn't want to go too much into Newton, because Bourdin was the one I had to look at. Talking to one my tutors he showed me how much I was worrying over something I didn't have to, he looked at Bourdin's images with me and over and over the locations were simple and the secret is that he played with it well, and he suggested me to do the same. To find a place "normal", for example, inside a house. I knew I had a space in my own house that resembled that same room from Newton's. So I gave up on the idea of bright red/yellow/blue background and instead I was going to use the colours of the objects to pop up on their on. I could use the shoes, her nails or even the clothes or a piece of furniture placed strategically in a corner. I was going to use my imagination.

I had to be sure I-D would be good for it, so I researched a couple of old issues I could find and saw the same bright colourful make-up over and over. I also found this "simple location - powerful image" scheme in loads of issues. So I kept my initial idea of using I-D. Had to check now the clothes and how they would fit in the shoot and in the magazine.

So now, it was just get a model, a photographer and shoot. I got a photographer and a model and because I work during the weekends I couldn't do it so it had to be during the week. I would need a light as well, so make the shadow effect, which reminded me of Hitchcock. I even thought about having the shadow of the shoes on the wall. 

GUY BOURDIN pt.1

Today we went to the Guy Bourdin exhibition at Somerset House. I was quite looking forward for this project because I like Guy Bourdin's photography. The goal of the was to produce a photoshoot based on one photography of our choice and the photo shoot must had a story, a narrative. My pick was this one: 

I picked this one because I loved the colours, the concept, how the legs were and the line of the underwear that gave a whole new definition to the legs. The colours made me think of Mickey Mouse for a while. I liked the line that divided the floor from the wall. Something that I thought for a second could mean something else. So, to get more information about him and his work I watched a documentary called "Dreamgirls - the photographies of Guy Bourdin" and I  learned a lot about his techniques, his personality, that his women are usually in very interesting positions and they usually look pretty dead, but with extreme make-up. Quite the extreme, they are so dead but looking so alive. His mother abandon him when he was younger and according to the movie, that's one of the reasons why his image of women is the way it is. I learned about Man Ray, Helmut Newton and his surrealistic inspirations. After watching the film I went for the books and because I couldn't find an actual book about him I went and researched his inspirations and Newton and Ray. I didn't want to use other artists for inspiration but I wanted to get the feeling of his time and from his inspiration get to him. Except that Newton's women are quite strong and powerful and not dead. So I had to be really careful not to run too far from Bourdin. But then, I came across this image: 

It's Newton's, but I could see some resemblance with Bourdin's work. The position of the bodies, how the lady who is laying on the floor, for example, she doesn't have a face and she looks pretty dead and how the "standing" lady also doesn't have a face and it's only legs. I could use that image and create a narrative with it, a murder scene maybe. Then I had a nice chat with one of the tutors and he said it was a good idea, but advised me to be careful not to go too far from Bourdin. So, my idea was set, a murder scene, maybe some blood, two models (a killer and a victim), I could use shoes as my accessory because that's the idea you get from the image. The focus is on their feet. Spring/summer would be my trend because there are more statement sandals during those seasons and finally, I-D as my magazine, because I saw a couple of photos that reminded me of Bourdin, specially with the heavy and colourful make-up and the simple locations but powerful images. Now all I need is to put the pieces together. I'm going to do more research about all the elements and maybe go back to the exhibition. 

Deconstruct pt. 3: THE PHOTO SHOOT

I managed to do a photoshoot with one of the designers, the theme was jungle and cavemen as opposite with the city and the "concrete jungle". The model's got pink hair to contrast the idea of cavemen and the modern society and modern days. The clothes were all made of fur and jeans.