Design essay amendments

Unit 4- Task 2- Design

Ms. S. Abela

Designing clothes was always an interesting aspect for me, not the usual every day, casual clothing but the ones that can be exaggerated, avant-garde and reflecting a mood, a character, a period or other.

One of my favorite costume designers is Colleen Atwood. With almost twenty years of costume designing experience, she can represent a character just by looking at what the actor is wearing.

“Costumes are the first impression that you have of the character before they open their mouth-it really does establish who they are.”- - Colleen Atwood.

In Snow White and the Huntsman, a film which Atwood was the costume designer of, the character of Charlize Theron, Queen Ravenna, is dressed in such a way that shows the character evolving throughout the film by having darker clothing as time goes by.

The shoulders of the wedding dress are made of parchment paper that was given a shape to resemble a skeleton cage. In my opinion the repetition of the parchment paper create subtle movement to the very stiff bustier.

Another film that Atwood was part of is Alice in Wonderland, although the film has an animation element Atwood designed the costumes of Alice before falling into the rabbit hole, and other costumes such as the armor of  Stayne- Knave of  Hearths because the animated version of his costume was slightly odd so a costume was made and then edited in the animation.

Although costume design is not a modern invention. Some type of clothing props were also used  in the 15th century when drama had started drifting away from being a religious message and into a political propaganda. in this period colors were used to show the character in the Drama being held. For example old men would wear white, while the younger characters would wear colorful clothing. As for Shakespeare's plays, the costumes used were either a fashionable dress of the time with a few additions to portray their character. in one of his plays production, Titus Andronicus, the costumes used were a mixture of different styles, and different colors. It was a tendency that the costumes used for Shakespeare plays would not be unified.

A drawing of the design concept for Titus Andronicus: 

By the drawing one can notice the difference between the very stiff armor of the soldiers compared to the flow of fabric the female character is wearing.

A fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, back in 2007, combined fashion design and technology, resulting in breath taking designs that change shape some way or another. The Victorian inspired clothing takes a shift to a different direction and totally jumps into a different era, the era of technology.  Since movement is the theme I am going to represent in my visual product I became very interested in the technology behind the designs. Different designs had a package inside with batteries, controlling chips and a motor which is smaller than 

a pencil! It was then activated by a pulley which was connected to the monofilament wire and gave energy to the tubes, giving supply to each cable to do its function. The technician for this project was Rob Edkins.

Designing clothes can lead to various outcomes, For my visual product I am inspired to do a wedding dress with technological aspects incorporated within resulting in movement of the design itself. 
I am also going to leave the traditional color of wedding dresses, white as the base color in my visual concept.

Ancient Rome and English Renaissance Theater,N/A.(online) Available at: http://www.pricejb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Rome/Peacham.jpg (10/03/2014)

Colleen Atwood Costume designer for ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ [online] Available at:

Cothing the Mad Hatter. [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADTakWsxe2U {16/12/2013]

Deirdre Clancy, N/A. A brief History of costume in the theater. Online Available at: http://www.clancy.uk.com/cdw/cdwhist6.html (10/03/2014)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d-Oi6Adsjs [16/12/2013]

Hussein Chalayan,[ online] Available at: http://husseinchalayan.com/#/home/ [15/12/2013]

Transformer clothing. [online] Available at: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=925 [16/12/2013]