In today’s workshop the objective was to deconstruct and then reconstruct a women’s jacket in reaction to our gender project. My group chose to go for a gender neutral jacket, half feminine and half masculine.
We planned how we would do this by brainstorming and sketching it out in our books. We wanted to keep it on trend by going for a cropped jacket and to have half of the jacket a waistcoat and the other half with a flared arm. The crop would be on an angle directing down towards the flared arm.
We began by unpicking the left arm from the shoulder and unpicking the right arm from the cuff. I gathered materials that we could use to add shades, tones and textures to the piece. I found grey for the waistcoat side and some dark muddy green for the flared arm side. We also decided to have a tail piece that hung down the right hand side, Ann wanted a mermaid effect on the tail.
By making a pattern for the grey material on the waistcoat side using newsprint and drawing round the waistcoat with a sharpie, we were able to measure the grey material more accurately for stitching. Once the pattern was cut out we placed it against the waistcoat and folded it as needed for shape, making sure it was under the collar so the brown of the collar would contrast against the grey nicely.
By drawing onto the jacket using a sharpie & tape measure, we were able to have a guide for cutting an angle on the waistcoat side directing it down towards to the right side of the jacket.
Katy pinned the grey panel onto the jacket, making a hem around the edge whilst I began pinning another grey panel for the back of the waistcoat by offering up the grey material, and then cutting off bits that overlapped.
Dave and Katy worked on the pockets. Unpicking the brown pocket on the waistcoat side and then sewing a grey patch onto the left hand side pocket so we could have a contrast between the sides. We found a different shade of grey material within the jacket when we cut down the angle and used that for the flared side on the collar. I feel this worked really well giving more texture and tone to the jacket.
Ann worked on the flared arm, unpicking it up to the elbow and cutting out the lining of the jacket. She added on material from the arm that had been cut off.
Once the pockets and arms were finished, Katy set to on the sewing machine and made a stitching all round the grey material to attach it on. A problem we came across was that the material hem was slightly too thick for the sewing machine, we overcame this by using a bigger needle and Katy carefully machine sewing it. However this extended the time we spent on it. Once Katy was finished sewing we put the jacket onto the model and took a step back to look. She has accidentally sewn the grey part to the brown under the arm, changing the fit of the jacket and pulling it to one side, however we just slipped our hand underneath and pulled the stitching out, releasing it and leaving it to fall back into line.
Whilst Katy was sewing on the machine, I found a lovely black piece of velvet that I felt would be perfect for a cravat. I found a pattern online for a cravat and went about drawing on the back of the material with clothing chalk, measuring it out, feeling that I could have been more precise if I had more time. As you can see from the pattern below, there were two parts that I folded to make it so the nice side of the material was on both sides. By pinning the sides together it made it easier to hand sew around the outside, which then made it easier to machine sew. I realised once I had machine sewn it however that it was too short for a cravat, so I made it into a bow tie instead by sticking with a glue gun, a small bit of leather in the middle at the join.
Ann cut the green material for the tail and attached another piece of brown leather to the end to attach it to the jacket. I cut out different shades of leather into strips for a scale effect and she stuck them on with a glue gun. Attaching the tail on, the jacket was finished and we were all really impressed with our efforts.
The theme I have chosen for my gender project is exploring gender fluidity, I feel this piece really ties in with this. Having the masculine side of the waistcoat but then also having that side quite fitted like it would be for a woman. Having the flared arm but then having the jacket quite lose on the side which could be quite masculine.
What I have realised whilst doing this project so far is that, to me gender is fluid. Males and females like different things, some men like flared arms and women like waistcoats. Its society and the media that have brainwashed people over the years into thinking that we should like stereotypical 'male things' or 'female things'.
Having different textures, colours and materials to express this in our piece really works. We have stuck with neutral colours to tie in with theme of being gender neutral, rough, smooth and billowy textures and the cotton, felt and leather is a real mix of gendered materials.
After doing this project it has made me want to further explore gendered materials in my sketchbook, If i have time i will certainly do this as I have a bag of old clothing in the garage I can have a look through for some inspiration.
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