Study Visit, Berlin…

After finishing the Creative Destruction project the class went to Berlin for the benefit of the next project which was to be Bauhaus. There were some amazing art galleries, which were very inspirational and helped me greatly to begin thinking of ideas for the Bauhaus project.

The photos were taken in the Hamburger Bahnhoff Museum.

Creative Destruction…

This was the first project completed that I had specialised in Fashion and Textiles.

I began this project by thinking of destructive words such as rot, burn, rip, tear. From this I started to think of plays or pieces of literature that involved stories of destruction. I thought of Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations all of these including the destruction of a relationship through destructive emotions such as jealousy, bitterness and hatred. After a little more thought I knew exactly what to base my project on.

The week previous to starting this project I went to see a play called Medea at Northern Stage in Newcastle. It was a contemporary version of the original Greek story, having seen the modern stage version I decided to read the original play and realised that it was the best base for the Creative Destruction project brief. It’s a story of a woman, who has been left by her husband for the Princess of Corinth. Medea has therefore been left with their two children and is extremely bitter towards her ex-husband Jason. When  she finds out that Jason is to marry the Princess she begins to plot against them. Before the pair get married Medea gives the Princess a gift of a wedding gown. When the Princess puts on the gown all is not well. Medea now being considered a witch has tampered with the dress and it starts to burn, described in the play:

“She took the gown and put around her… Then suddenly we saw a frightening thing… oozing from the girls lips, white froth: the pupils of her eyes were twisted out of sight and the blood drained from all her skin… The golden coronet round her head discharged a stream of unnatural devouring fire: while the fine dress… was eating her clear flesh.”

“…her head dripped blood mingled with flame; her flesh attacked by the invisible fangs of poison, melted from the bare flesh.”

Clearly not a very nice image but this really expresses Medea’s utter hatred in order to drive such an evil plan, therefore perfect for a theme of creative destruction. From this research I began to think of creative and contemporary designs for a costume for the play.

I began to think further about the direction of the project, I looked at some more quotes from the play and remembered the constant references that are made about Medea being a woman and that she is continually being told that she is of the weaker sex. In the actual play Medea wanted to cause as much pain to Jason as possible and this was done by murdering his new wife, an emotional pain. So I began to think but what would it have been like if she had of tried to murder Jason? Obviously she would have wanted to cause great pain (but a physical pain by hurting Jason himself) but I also thought about the fact that she didn’t have a formal job, she was a mother and therefore I started to think about what she would have had available in order to cause pain. I created some more designs but for a man and came up with the initial idea of draw strings, the idea of the clothes being able to be tightened on stage by the part of Medea in order to link in with the original plays quotes. I also thought of ideas that would not only cause pain if thrown onto someones skin but that also caused a marking onto the fabric so that the audience could visually see a difference/transformation on stage. From this I came up with the idea of bleach and coffee, items that would burn the skin and discolour fabric.

This is my final piece for the project. but feeling that this didn’t reflect the play as well as I thought it could I have decided to develop the piece further.