A New Brief

We were given the new brief this week, (or last week, depending how you look at it - Wednesday, anyway), at   college.

The brief title is 'Summer Collection', and the module is all about contextual and cultural referencing.

The basic idea is that we should concentrate on a period of history (modernish history), a decade or more, and that we should look at the ways that design has been influenced by the wider social, cultural and political  happenings of that time.

At the same time, we'll take part in a series of workshops using millinery materials more usually used in summer (eg sinamay).

From these starting points, we'll be creating a capsule collection of three pieces of summer headwear (at least one of which must be a full hat).

It may be assumed that I would have a natural advantage when it comes to the historical stuff, but I don't want to take anything for granted, so will be doing the research.  (I probably do have an advantage as far as the research goes, because of the tranche of books that I have at my fingertips).  But in a way that makes it harder, doesn't it, because I have no excuses!

At this stage, I'm thinking of looking at the early 20th century as my base for research.  I've always loved the 20s and 30s.  That said, I'm thinking of basing it around the dates between roughly 1900 (or possibly 1910), and 1950.  There were huge social changes in those years, even if you forget about the two wars - revolutions and socialism spreading across Europe, the rise of Fascism, the emancipation of women, the democratisation of fashion (with the beginnings of ready-to-wear), the introduction of labour laws, paid holiday and the welfare state, etc, etc.

But anyway, that's all for next week.  This weeks homework is research into 'summer millinery', so lots of looking at hats!