Some images from the final samples created for the Inside/Outside project.

Christopher Bailey chooses the winners!

Christopher Bailey from Burberry was here last week to look at all the student's final work and he has now chosen the three winners.

Mandeep Mann was awarded first prize, Henry Hussey was awarded second prize and Kirsty Lawson got third prize. Initially only the winner was going to be given an internship in the Burberry design studios, but Christopher was so impressed with all three finalists that they are all to be given internship opportunities.

Images of the winning work coming shortly, and the winning samples along with some other commendable designs are on show in the Chelsea library at Millbank from today.

This project is getting alot of attention across the University and has been mentioned in the Arts London News site and on the Chelsea Snapshot blog regularly.

Henry Muller's project

My project is a William Turner-inspired look at printed textiles. I started with a journey by the River Thames taking photos at both sunrise and sun set, and this lead me to manipulating the raw images in Illustrator. In the same way that Turner experimented with machine made paint which was a new technology at the time, I have used the computer to create the pinted patterns from photographs of the Thames.

More images photos and video’s on my this blog which I set up for this project.

http://relookingatlooking.blogspot.com/

Charlotte Des Ascoyne's project

Victorian botanical plates were key to documenting species of plant around the globe and they were specifically important in the development of scientific discovery for medicinal purposes. Taking this into account I'm looking at the food that was key to the Victorian era that the Millbank Penitentiary was erected.

It is important that all samples are hand drawn so that they represent the original plates. I have tried to make the drawings slightly macabre in the hope that they reflect the mood of the era. Keeping the prints simple will allow this sense of social commentary to seep off the cloth. The prints will also be subjected to embroidery in order to mimic the skills that would have been taught in this time. The fabrics will differ from natural cottons to polyesters so that the matt of the drawing can contrast with the materials.

Slow Ways of Knowing

Slow Lab, an organisation devoted to exploring Slow Design, is working with design students in Amsterdam on a project about local urban landmarks. Just as students have been asked to investigate the local Millbank area for Inside/Outside, this project in Amsterdam is using a range of creative tools to develop 'Slowing' scenarios for a place already steeped in political, social and personal histories.

It is based on Slowlab's previous project called Slow Ways of Knowing, that encourages new ways of 'knowing' urban landscapes, and has been played out in places including Bristol in the UK and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, USA.

Slowlab are drawing inspiration from sources like UK charity Common Ground's 'Rules for Local Distinctiveness' to encourage the students to think in new ways about 'local'.

"By revealing unseen or forgotten aspects of those places, Slow Ways of Knowing projects strive to generate awareness and participation, to remind people of their own part in and responsibility to the life of such places, and to encourage ongoing creative investigations. Only then is it possible to envision and, importantly to affect what they may become in the future."

Studio samples

Some images from the studio, as students start developing textile samples from their research for the Inside/Outside project.

Holly Holme's project

The repetition and maps of the panopticon was the inspiration for my repeated designs.

The bright colours were inspired from my journey along the Thames starting at Millbank, where the prisoners would have started their journey to Australia. I found myself taking pictures of the contrasting textures of mould, chipped away metals and sand. I have shown this within my work by using contrasting printing techniques and materials that would be suitable for both inside and outside the home.

Harriet Culingford's project

My initial starting point for this project was the idea of a journey from A to B; this led to the concept of 'from freedom to captivity'. To begin with folk art and traditional techniques played a large part of my research, also artists such as Joseph Beuys and Ai Weiwei enthused the idea of multiples. This translated into the vision of creating two separate feels that could merge together or hold their own as separate groupings. The first grouping being 'freedom', very bright fresh images quite craft-based digital prints, the second being, 'held captive' which involved very dark moody screen-printed rough textured fabrics.

I really wanted to explore texture within my prints to create a very tactile collection, experimenting with both digital and screen. Inspired by Michael van der Ham’s 2011 spring collection and his mixture of fabrics and the merging of their weights led me to play with finishes on surfaces, layering, stitching, scanning, cutting, bonding and heating. For me texture and techniques have been a large driving force for this collection really pushing my technical knowledge and making me think twice. Therefore keeping the screened imagery simplistic and mark-making themed has been an absolute must allowing me to concentrate on surface quality.

Artist Clare Qualmann has also contributed to the Burberry Project. Clare's practice includes walking, and she has developed a walk called Darned Memory - a walk exploring Millbank in relation to making & mending, collecting narratives and telling stories, which takes in the whole Millbank neighbourhood.

Participants are given a map, and are taken on a tour of several local landmarks of interest that Clare has researched. One location is a laundry ditch which runs along the edge of the Arts and Crafts Millbank Estate. The ditch is said to be all that remains of the moat surrounded the Prison. On the walk, Clare invites you to go down into the ditch and hang something you own on the line and tell a story about it. The top image is Clare's red jumper, given to her by her mother on the day she went off to art school, that she has repaired and mended over the years.

Another stop on the tour is the corner of the Millbank Gardens, which is where the old prison laundry used to be. Arthur Griffiths, who was a Deputy Govenor of the Prison, tells the story of several letters that were found amongst the laundry, written mostly on torn pages from a prayer book using laundry blue as ink, along with love-tokens such as a heart embroidered in grey worsted wool on a flannel badge.

Smocking Workshop

Students were shown how to do traditional smocking by hand, by new PhD student Matty Aspinall as part of the Burberry project.

Matty first introduced the students to the history of smocking. Apparently, the word “smock” comes from the Anglo Saxon ‘smoce’ meaning a shift or shirt when men working in the fields wore loose fitting tunic-like garments.

The smock was, in the majority, made from bleached linen. It was worn for both leisure and labour. The most common smocks worn were the ‘reversible frocks’ and the ‘smocked coat’. The latter was front fastening with buttons going ¾ the way down the front. In both styles embroidery over the ‘tubing’ or gathers controlled the fullness of the garment and gave the wearer considerable protection against the wind and rain.

Victoria Anderson's project

There is a world of beauty right under our noses that is often missed. A ‘macro’ way of looking at the world around us presents an up-close view of this tiny world, not often seen by the naked eye. Emotional and physical isolation and containment causes the enhancement of our perception of this world. Concentrating on an object and discovering all the intricacies develops this perception within.

Catherine Mei-Ping Frere-Smith's project

For this project I have chosen to explore the notions of inside and outside by revisiting vintage floral fabrics and studying the formal structure of elaborate repeated prints typically used by designers such as William Morris. Growing up in the Kentish countryside has always really inspired a lot of my work and I often link nature to a sense of freedom and escapism. This is something I have tried to incorporate into the mood of this project in the colours and flow of the prints, and by using natural fabrics such as thin cotton and linen.

I love the hand drawn elements of design and have tried to capture the essence of drawing and painting within the final prints to draw a connection between the flowers I drew and painted at the start of the project and the final print designs. I have also started making a series of sculptural collars to complement the prints and will develop my designs further by using embroidery and embellishment techniques.

Natasha Wodzynski's project

Inspiration for this project began with my interest in accidentally or deliberately occurring natural patterns and structures. The growth of fungi is one such pattern that, in its many forms grows and spreads, changing form, structure, texture and colour, as it does. Taking the theme of Inside/Outside into account, and with my interest in natural patterns, I chose to look at the growth of fungi as it spreads from the inside to the outside of its occupied host. It clings to that host for life and lives off it, spreading out and over it.

Within this project I hope to capture the parasitic nature of fungi and its behaviour of clinging onto its host and spreading its life across the inside and bursting out of the surface. Visual imagery was collected through picking mushrooms and growing mold in Petri dishes and then exploring the patterns and textures seen in these through drawing. Through research into fungi I came across an artist called Chris Drury who uses mushroom spore prints in his work. Making a spore print involves leaving a mushroom on a piece of paper over night with a lid over the top. The mushrooms release their spores on the paper leaving a beautiful delicate drawing of the linear underside of the mushroom.

I adopted this method to create some beautiful ghostly drawings from which I have developed fabric ideas and colour schemes.Techniques such as printing with puff, flock and heat transfer paper are all employed and then on top of this I have manipulated fabrics to create folds, pleats and patterns within the fabric to replicate the patterns and textures found in my research and to capture the clinging and spreading behaviour of fungi.

Slow Lecture by Helen Carnac

The maker and curator Helen Carnac spoke at Chelsea last week as part of the Inside/Outside project. Helen's practice is - to quote from her website - ‘drawing, mark-making, the explicit connections between material, process and maker and an emphasis on deliberation and reflection are all central to her practice as a maker and thinker.’

Helen spoke of her ideas and concepts for making and craft processes, and how she triggers her thoughts and ideas for making. She sees end products more as resting points in processes (in making and thinking), which is something I found very interesting in terms of my own Slow theories., that I developed in the final year of my BA textile design course here at Chelsea last year.

I feel, as do many others, that rethinking one's work is a vital part of making, and contributes to working in a Slow manner by literally slowing you in your work, forcing you to stop and consider what changes (if any) you should make, and where you go next with your work.

Helen commented further on this by listing possible key words for Slow, in a possible sequence; reveal, reflect, engage, participate, evolve. For her Slow means looking at one, all or some of the following; quality, provenance, lasting value and valuing craft skills. She also used the word tempo, stressing this was another important word for makers and designers to consider.

All of these ideas contribute to the Inside / Outside project and resonate with Burberry’s ideals and Christopher Bailey’s presentation to the students last week. Bailey advised designer's to maintain their own strong personal vision in response to a brief, and Carnac furthers this idea by offering a possible framework for this exploration.

Regarding the Inside / Outside brief, she commented on the statement “We cannot afford cheap things” by saying ‘What is cheap? What if we cannot afford expensive things?’. Talking about the exploration of the history of Millbank she said ‘can we understand what it was to live in another time? How do we understand it today? Is it a false nostalgia?’

To listen to the talk, go here.

By Bridget Harvey

Mandeep Mann's project

The idea for my project stems from the confinement of prisoners within cells, with only windows and prison bars to look out from.

I began my research by observing and drawing gates and railings from differing perspectives. I tried to capture the way the gates disappear into the distance. The visit to the Ironwork and Islamic galleries at the V&A was very inspiring.

My drawings are very 3D and decorative. There is a change in pattern intensity and relief, which I have tried to capture and communicate within fabric. I have been experimenting with techniques such as quilting, hand embroidery and encasing materials within fabrics. I have also explored marbling techniques. The resulting fabric that I have developed has an optical illusion quality, which is exciting. I will continue to develop this technique further with the emphasis on high and low relief combined with intricate patterns.

Melissa Bliss is one of the artists-in-residence at Chelsea through the AA2A scheme until May 2011 along with 3 other artists, Tope Tijani, Laura Carew and Jonathan Baldock.

Melissa's practice is participatory and she will be working on a project about Millbank which will involve people who live, work and study in the area. Currently Melissa is researching the history of the area and meeting people who live and work in the area. She will document her residency and project online through Delicious, Flickr, Twitter, the AA2A blog and here - you can find the links from her website livingcinema.org

There will be opportunities for students and staff to be involved. Initially Melissa is looking for people to take her on walks around the College and local area, showing her all the nooks and crannies and their favorite places.

You can find out more about Melissa's practice and those of the other AA2A artists, at their presentation on Wednesday 24 November 2011, 11am - 1pm. You can also contact her directly on melissa@livingcinema.org or on twitter.com/bliss_LDN

Egle Vaituleviciute's project

As an inspiration for the Inside/Outside project my starting point was looking at the Millbank Panoptican building structures. As I researched further, I began to think about the prisoners trapped inside these building structures.This led me to the Wellcome Collection, where I loked at the human body and anatomy. In my drawing reaserch, I was exploring the idea of the inside of the body on the outside, body distortion, and emotions trapped on the inside wanting to get out.

In my experimental textile process, I have been looking at various techniques,m including the traditional Shibori dyeing techniques and trying to translate them into a fresh, contemporary feel. These building and body structures are complex, and they are interesting to explore as they have many layers and points of view. My work reflects this diversity with the combination of layering through the different techniques I am combining together.

Design with a 360 degree view

On Thursday 11th November, Christopher Bailey came to Chelsea to perform a Q & A session with the students participating in the Inside / Outside Project. He opened the session with an introduction.

"Be great designers, with attitude. Good design is expected, but it is how we communicate that design, which is equally, if not more important. There are lots of ideas out there and to make one stand out you need to have a razor sharp vision - what’s your point of view? The way designer’s articulate and communicate their designs is what sets them aside, it’s about finding your voice."

Lots of questions were posed from the audience which covered: craft and heritage; digital media; sustainability; and the project itself.

The big ‘sustainability’ word was flagged up through a question from the audience. Bailey explained that there are lots of ways to address this issue within the design process. They recycle or reuse their fabric remnants and have re-designed the layout and format of the Burberry HQ on Westminster with consideration to energy and material use. But, the most eco aspect of the brand is that their look books and marketing campaigns are paperless - they have gone digital.

Last year they launched The Art of the Trench, on online social media platform which archives images of the iconic trench coat past and present. In true street-style format, Scott Schulman from The Sartorialist and other top photographers were commissioned but the platform is also partly user generated. Visitors can submit their own images, as well as choose their favourite photos, comment on individual pictures and share them with others (via Facebook and other applications).

Another way to address sustainability is craftsmanship and The Art of the Trench documents how well-crafted and designed garments can transcend from one generation to the next, what we call here at TED 'long-life'. Another venture by Burberry that celebrates long-life garments, is Burberry Bespoke, that will launch next year, offering an online bespoke service for trench coats. This concept explores personalisation and extends the remit of the design process by opening it up to the individual.

Some students asked what the panel will be looking for when judging the Inside / Outside Project. The response - "that gut feeling and a sensory reaction to something. The passion will be reflected within your work, when someone invests their heart and soul into a project - it screams. Being mindful of your design and its place in the world helps, a 360 projection of where it fits in the world and how it will be used. What’s the bigger picture? How does it work / function in people's lives? "

I thought this was a fantastic Q & A session with honest, direct and inspirational responses to each question. I think behind Bailey’s genius and vision, lies a basic commitment to a powerful way of design thinking. This goes beyond being a fashion designer and is about using the power of design as a means of exploring new possibilities, creating new choices, and bringing new solutions into the world.

By Jen Ballie, TFRC PhD student

Peggy Moseley's project

Using the project title, 'Inside/Outside,' I chose to look at exotic plants, taking them apart and looking into the unexpected structure inside. This led me to start looking at fruit such as pomegranate, passion fruit, kiwi and figs. I liked the colour palettes and felt they all worked together and was fascinated by their intricate structure found within.

Through observation and drawing I looked very closely into the form, texture and colour of the fruit. Submerging them into water has helped to inform my colour palate and has proven to be an interesting way to draw them. Linking this observation with Millbank, I have researched the stitching techniques such as lacing that women in the old Millbank prisons used and have incorporated that into my practice. I have also been researching beautiful structures that I see reflected within the exotic fruit structures.

Using these techniques mixed with my research on exotic fruits I want to create beautiful fabrics that touch on the history of Millbank, while still focusing on the inside and out theme. I have now begun to experiment with materials that reflect my research and will lead into my final designs. One such idea is to use fabric incased in plastic to help observe the shiny quality that is portrayed in my drawings.

Christopher Bailey at Chelsea

Christopher Bailey's talk to students yesterday was a great success with Christopher introducing his design approach and answering questions from students. He talked very eloquently about the strong heritage of the Burberry archives and history as a company. More info can be found on the Chelsea blog here.

PhD student Jen Ballie, will post shortly on her reflections of the talk, in particular Christopher Bailey's whole approach to being a designer and running a large fashion brand, as being a great example of a design thinker.

Go here to see the latest Burberry video campaigns, and some of the bands and musicians that they are promoting.