A Question Of

A Question Of is a sustainable and eco fashion collection, whose mission it is to make sustainable living a simple choice. They treat all their workers fairly, with respect, to use eco friendly materials to help the environment and improve human health. Their products are made in Africa under fair trade conditions, they want to support people and workers in developing countries, paying them a fair price for their work, and better working and living conditions for African textile workers.

Eco Boutique

As part of my new brief I had to look into sustainability and eco fashion because of the current effect 'fast fashion' is having on the environment and the earth. 
I found eco boutique online and I thought that there morals and ideas about fashion are fantastic, they want to go back to when people bought  less and cherished what they did have more. They want to promote 'slow fashion', their limited edition collections are unique and individual. 
They also have strong ideas about eco fashion including; the t-shirts are made with 100% organic fabrics, 90% less CO2, and water based inks that are environmentally friendly, when possible use 100% biodegradable mail bags that are made from 100% recycled materials, and any waste that they produce will also be recycled. 
They mostly make t-shirts for both men and women, but they also create accessories including scarves and jewellery. 

Website Address; http://ecoboutiqueshop.co.uk/index.php/

The Eco Guide/Symbols

I found these symbols that might be found on some clothes, especially eco and up-cycled clothes. Some of them are slightly different but they have the same themes.

Upcycled 

Climate Aware

Ethnical

Organic 

Recycled 

Sustainable 

UK Made

Staircase House

After we had been to the air raid shelter, we then went to the Staircase house in Stockport, again it was a place that I have never been before and didn't know that there was a place like this in Stockport.
Staircase House was first build around 1460, but was painstakingly restored in 1995 after a fire. The builders would use traditional tools, materials and techniques to restore the building to it's former glory. the house is now open to the public, so they can take a step back in time and see rooms from different eras of time, including; medieval, edwardian and a 1940's bedroom, each room has furniture,style and a colour scheme which you would find during each different time period.


We went there especially to see the 1940's style bedroom, and them we went to the basement to see a living room and kitchen in a similar style. There was also information about rationing, the clothing, and materials that were available at that time.

Here are some photo's;

I thought that it was a great place to go and I was surprised at the range and selection of different things there, because from the outside it looks so small and tiny, but when you go inside it's a maze of different floors, rooms and themes. 

Stockport Air Raid Shelter

Yesterday we went as a group to the Stockport Air Raid Shelter, even though I have walked by there loads of times I never knew that it was there. We were given a tour around the shelter and were told about what times were like at that period for the people in Stockport, Cheshire and Manchester who would have travelled to the shelter during WWII. 
The shelters were dug out from the side of a hill made of red sandstone, the Shelters are an underground network that go on for over a mile. And were a safe place for the public to go during bombings and attacks on the country. Over the years during the war the shelter had to expand due to more and more people going to the shelters, during the end of the war it could hold up to 6,500 people and looking after those people would be three wardens and a team of nurses looking after the sick and injured. 
You would never think that underneath all the shops and houses that there is a network of tunnels passageways, that were used over sixty six years ago. 

The Wardens Room 

A Babies Gasmask 

The Nurses Room

One Kitchen for everyone in the Shelter 

An example of a Bomb shelter that people with gardens would make

I really enjoyed the tour and learnt a lot from it, and will help with my knew brief, about sustainability. It was amazing to see how difficult it was for people during the War, and how different our lifestyles our now. 

Kirstie's Handmade Britain

Last night I watched Kirstie's Handmade Britain and it was the second episode of the series and it was all about paper crafts. The idea of the show is that Kirstie travels around Britain entering different craft and baking competitions. This week she was in Wales and entering into a craft competition, where she made a embroidered card, a paper bird and some paper rings. 
On the show she has some help from artists, and crafters and helping her with the embroidered card was one of my favourite artists Claire Coles, she used a selection of old wallpapers and fabrics to create the card and then sewed into using a sewing machine with a  darning foot to create the fluid and flowing lines. 
She also created a paper rose ring, with the help of paper artist Phiona Richards, using paper from an old book and a quilling tool (I will have to get one), it was really simple but they looked really pretty and vintage.
Here are some pictures from the channel 4 website; 

Rose Ring, Inspired by Phiona Richards

Embroidered Card, Inspired by Claire Coles 

Rose Rings, Inspired by Phiona Richards 

You can watch the program back any time on the Channel 4 website

Wild West Final Prints

My second brief at uni was to design six fashion prints with the theme of the Wild West. We had to use a mixture of Photoshop and also Illustrator for this brief, so it helped having some lessons in photoshop because I had only used it in the past for editing photographs. 

I decided that I wanted to design a collection of prints for womens fashion, mainly targeted at the high street, because in my research I found that a lot of high street shops had already included the wild west and native patterns in their recent collections; such as H&M, Urban Outfitters and also online on ASOS. 

I started my own work by going to Manchester Museum and taking photographs of lizards, snakes and native clothing, I then used these photographs to draw from as part of my primary research. I then looked into fashion designers and shop collections that have used he Wild West as an inspiration, such as D&G, Hermes and Ralph Lauren, to help get inspiration and ideas from. I used the original drawings scanned them into Photoshop and manipulated them and changed them to create the prints. My prints were inspired by the wild west with the skulls, lizards and snakes, and also native patterns, such as dreamcatchers and feathers, and also cowboys with the horseshoe print. 

Here are some of the final prints;