Unit Launch & Tutorial

The Locating unit provides the opportunity to develop an understanding of your own contextual practice, which for me will be a great help as I have previously been struggling with "Locating" my work, and have been testing different areas to discover where my work is at.
After thoroughly reading over the live project briefs, I am aiming for the "Apron" project as it provides various contextual opportunities within the 'fashion' areas, theres decorative and practical. Within these there is an opportunity to discover the styles of different aprons dependent on the wearer. Both the decorative and the practical category generally highlights the social status or rank.
The visit to Platt Hall was very helpful as there were different styles, compositions and decorative qualities depending on where the garment was made and which era it originates from. Reading over the Apron descriptions was interesting as it teaches you the sentimental qualities and the purpose of the "Apron", depending again on the decorative qualities and the skill involved, along with the style (those with a full design and little embroidered detail with full stable fastenings or ties were generally for more practical uses, as they weren't as delicate).
From this visit the "Aprons" that interested me the most were the more embroidered and embellished designs. There were a few with this style, all of those that caught my eye were originating back to the 19th century - all of the same era.
The first was 1850-1860, made with black velvet, trimmed with black lace and embroidered with a carefully compositioned colourful floral design. This was a skirt apron with a bib attached, and no back, its fastening was a ribbon tie.

The second originated from 1860-1870, this could be seen as a development from the first as in replacement for the lace trimming was beaded fringing, and for structure, two pleats running down either side of the centre. It was again made from black silk with a carefully compositioned floral embroidered design and ribbon ties.

The main inspirations im taking from this was ribbons and trimmings from the 19th century with an apron shape of a simple skirt design with no back and ties.
My tutorial this week helped me to understand my colour pallet, due to struggling with the experimentation and matching of colour within projects and this being a major weakness in my last project, I really needed to organise colour before any samples were to be started/designed. Looking over drawings that I wish to use from the "Downing Archive", the range of colour was quite restricted, being mainly tones of pink, this is a challenge for me to utilize the lightest and darkest colours and to match them together successfully and effectively.