Camilla cuzner- Charles, Accessories Designer

Has worked in accessories for 12 years

Worked in London for 8 years

Worked in for NY 4 years

Working in accessories means that it’s challenging and there are a range of things you can work on.

Work history

Did a placement at Brighton University

First was a print job – was fired within the first week

Second job, same happened

Third job – did everything she possibly could and helped out – DKNY

She got work placements from friends of friends and from other jobs

She studied at The Royal college of art – knitting- likes the concept of knitting, the interlocking shaped, moved onto interlocking shapes – tiles, Islamic patterns, Lego

RCA final show – Designed a leather bag using diamonds and stars, interlocked into each other. She started to play with other materials, very stiff leather, acid resist copper,

Shopping bag – interlocking rectangles

Started thinking about folds

Origami – shuzo Fujimoto, twist origami

Le Klint – lamps

Modular origami – satori

Folded metal stars – made into a chandelier

Had to move back to knitting

Started to use a knitting machine, Moral machine, a digitised knitting machine, scan on pictures and it would knit it.

She used knitted silver and grillon bonded to leather and cut into interlocking shapes, when folded, it meld its shape

Moral machine, digitised knitting machine, scan on pictures and it would knit it

Graduated in 2004

She then heard from Bill Amburg, a bag commissioner that wanted to sell her bag ideas.

She found out later on that her bags aren’t made for commercial products because there is too much leather, cuttings and hand work.

Liberty 2004-5

Worked with all kinds of a products

Embossed leather travel bags

Embellished metal scarves

Wants everything to be luxurious

Press- living etc, embroidered pillow

ES magazine – embroidered scarf

Paul Smith 2005-2010

The Paul smith brand swirl and stripe print

Work from massive design boards – hats and scarves, visual mind map

Tech pack – what is given to the factory to make the product

2008 financial crisis and the power of accessories

New York – American Eagle

Like gap but for teenagers

Fully commercial environment

Designed into the price

Kate Spade

Quirky

Design into price tiers

Has a certain amount of money to spend on each tier

Now does free lance work

‘Creativity is greater than money’

University of Brighton

Last year was a year in placement, in the industry

The tutors help you do it

Stay in touch with people in the industry

Talk to your tutors- they know people

Summer holidays work

It’s the better the experience that you’ve got, and how likeable you are

Start from the bottom, make the cups of tea

Collection designing

Kate Spade

Main designer would get a colour palette and theme

Everyone in the company in different departments would get the same theme and palette

Make a trend board, what competitors are doing, high street, anything inspiring

Keeps you focused

Meet with the buyer

Good, better, best categorising

The best one is luxury and what it given to the press, shows what the company is about

Make sure all departments tie in together, all intentional

If the designer was 10 items they would design 30 items for them to pick

Tech packs – all the designs, materials, accessories, the label, the sizing, all sent to the factory so they know what they are doing

6 weeks later, Sample is sent back from factory, everyone would say opinions

6 weeks after, final sample is sent back

All final ideas are made then and everything is made perfect

Final tech pack made,

200-300 pieces worked on at any season

Keep all the pictures and ideas so that they can be referred to later on

Photoshop and illustrator is important

In design, taking over the world, learn if possible

A range of hand drawing and computer drawing in portfolio

RCA

Do a whole project for them

Getting grilled on what you have done and why, very tough on you

Working for different companies that have different styles to yours and to other companies

Will work with buyers closely

British companies – creative lead

American companies – buying lead

Went to China

The conditions

They have to make the same thing for months

Only have certain times for toilet breaks, and if they don’t go in that time then they had to wait for the next break.

Like old industrial revolution

Went to Italy

Misoni factory

Out for lunches and dinner

Take pride in the work that they do

I found this chat with Camilla really interesting. It was interesting to hear about how the different companies work. The companies that she worked for in the UK were very high end and they worked by making very expensive and extravagant items. However, the companies in America were run very different, and were more about money and not working over the limit. I also liked to listen about her time in New York because it opened up more opportunities to think about and if I ever wanted to move away.

Sustainability Greenwashing and Globalisation

Continuous cycle of buying and throwing, sales

Can online shop now too, don’t need to go out the house

Do we have responsibility for the environment?

In our work? Our art?

Has to have a desire to be sustainable, not because you can

Modernity, industrial revolution

McDonald’s Christmas advert 2013

Family, community, orientated

Building have changed from red to green – greenwashing

Encouraging our use of fast food

Channels £400milliom of British revenue through Luxembourg

Sustainable products

Inside down fridge

Learning thermostat

Reusable household cleaning products

4in1 coat jacket dress skirt, used to try to stop fast fashion

Better bread packaging

Safer cycling in a pair of jeans

Recycling water bottles

The spirit of design book

Stella McCartney, waterless shirt

Uses pressurised carbon dioxide

Uses 20 litres of water to make one tshirt – dying process

H&M 

Improving the responsibility of water

Working with WWF

Collaboration with Musèe des Arts Dècoratifs – bringing in more art

Mink 

Vegan products

Unique shoes

Doesn’t use any animal products, all animal friendly

More expensive than high stree shoes but will last longer

Vivienne Westwood

‘Buy less choose well’

But can’t buy things every month

Patagonia

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis

I found this lecture very interesting as looking after the environment is something that I am passionate about and tries every little bit of my help. I liked knowing about the different companies that are trying to help the environment and what they are doing to help.

Environment

Modernity-

Wastage

Buy less choose well

Balance

Mass production

Veganism

Bi-products

Stella McCartney – vegan designer, a vegetarian

Waterless

Synthetic, acid dyes, harmful to the environment

The dyed water goes back into the water system and it can poison people

Harm them so we don’t harm ourself

Digital print vs screen print

Looses the makers hand – so many made from the one design

Desirable

Branding

Recycling

Ethics

Responsibility

Greenwashing

Africa

Charity clothes- selling them on

Child labour

Consuming

Globalisation

Individuality

Unique

Rei kowakarbo, com de garçon

Walter Benjamin, the art of the mechanical revolution

Feminism and visuality – Jeremy Spencer

 

Gender was a way of organising culture and society

Social, political and cultural society – fluid

Biological and physical differences

Impress women and empower men

Women as sex objects

As seen in Magazines and adverts

Sarah Maple, photographs

 

Showing the way that men think of women

Stereotype

Barbie

Slutwalk 

Campaigning to stop rape culture and victim-blaming

Police officer and Toronto blaming the women and what they are wearing

‘Yes means yes and no means no’

Reduce women to breeding machines

Rape – brutalise and humiliate women

Women are more natural then men, closer to nature

Control over their bodies, abortions, birth control

Using medicine to escape pregnancy

Karl Marx 

A women’s image is appropriate as a commodity to be consumed

Matisse– a painter and his model

Reversed to model and representation

The male painter is nude and the model is clothed

Jackson pollock, one 

Women, the negative space, splattering it, covering it

Judy Chicago, the dinner party

Celebrating and empowering women

Break the taboo, menstruation

Mary Kelly, postpartum feminism document

The separation of mother and child

Hans Bellmer,

Photographed a life size mannequin in the form of an adolescent girl

The female body is meant to be perfect so men don’t get scared

The oblique look, Robert doisneau

A couple stop to look at a painting in a window and taking to her husband, except he is looking away at a picture of a naked woman, we can’t see the picture she is looking at so it doesn’t matter. It’s a little joke about the woman,

Dior, advert

The woman is looking back at the male gazer

Making myself a monster – Lisa Temple-Cox

She chose to look at anatomical specimens.

– their normal but abnormal

Recognise them as being human

Racial identity

She came from a mixed race family

Malaysian family and boarding school

Moved to Essex

Stricter lines between reality and fantasy in Essex compared to Malaysia

Body worlds exhibition VonnHargen

Preserving the body

Plasticy

Pre photography preservation techniques – in jars

Fragonard museum

Using wax

Leonardo di Vinci

Drawings of the anatomy

Andreas verseas

First to publish drawings from life

Gravid

An engraving of a baby in a womb

Would take engraving of illnesses and would paint them to get the colour and idea about what it looks like

Anatomical venuses

A beautiful woman that you could open up and look inside

Would have floating surgeon hands

Can sense their personalities in their faces

Started making casting of her face

Unhomely feeling – taking out of the home and putting in jars

Baby’s

Conjoined twins – joined at the chest

Could put the babies in jars on display but they had drawings of them

Putting her head into different fluids in jars

Most famous death cast

Killed herself in the seine

Would take death casts so loved ones could come and see if they recognised the body

She was used to practise the kiss of death and is the most kissed girl in the world

Then tried a plaster cast

People started to talk about her rather than to her when her face was a covered

Looked a bit like an alien

Starts to look more like a death mask, even though she is alive still

Wine, urine, milk, control jar had no head but just water

Blood head

Mapping the remains

Creating drawings of things in museums

Connections between field work drawings

The lecture- Lisa Temple-Cox

– research – primary research,

photographs- flat memory, stored in the camera and not developed, instant

– Identity – cultural identity,

– Analyse – judgement, clothes, hair, ‘fashion’, face,

– made it personal,

Feminism, psychoanalysis, philosophy,

How people use fashion – trivial or live by it

People really think about what they are going to wear each morning, people that just throw on whatever because they don’t care what they look like

Using something that you like to help get information and ideas – the hunt and they’d long legged ant

Using your history’s to help with your philosophy – fay’s Scottish heritage, a tailor in the past

Your personality comes through in your sketchbook, messy vs neat

Genius/lunacy – Avent Garde, contemporary fashion designers

Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westward, Victor and Ralph, Paco Robanne,

Death masks,

Having a face makes it easier to relate to,

Welcome institute

Develops fabric technology

Medical themed

Welcomes innovative technologies and designs

Analysis 

How?

To understand

To be inspired/ to then aspire

Compatibility

Comparison

Educate

Relate

Reason – to answer

Competitive

In our nature

How?

Senses

Subconscience

Utilising knowledge and understanding

Assumptions

Research

Verbally

Mentally

Social media

Behaviour

Questioning

Assumptions

Tania Bines, Design manager for Paul Dennicci

Paul Dennicci is know for designing and making baby clothing up to 2 years.

They are manufactured in China and India, designs done at malden.

They have taken 4 graduates from CI in the past few years. It is 12-18 months of learning on the job.

George concept

16 versions were made for customer

They had to get approval from Disney because the designs used Winnie the Pooh.

Manufacturing 

Make sure to make clear instruction for the oversea manufactures, they don’t speak english so it needs to be translated well so they understand what they need to do. All the fabric details need to be put down so they fully understand what they are using.

Make sure sample looks great when showing the concept to buyers so they want to buy it

Make sure it is ready when it need to be,

Think about international holidays, Chinese New Year, they workers get a month holiday off so there would be no production at that time.

Get it into store in time, if it’s late then we will loose money and miss buyers.

It is useful to know how to put a garment together, it makes it easier in the design process because you know how it fits together and where to put the details that will work.

All the poppers need to be tested so that they all fit and stay together and won’t come off when being worn by a customer.

Needle policy, shut everything down so they can find the whole needle, if not found then everything in they row are destroyed.

Back neck buggys- making sure it looks good on the hanger

Making small touches they don’t cost a lot of money but add value to the garments.

The Industry

It can be hard to get into this industry, make sure to keep in contact with the industry. No one is job ready to start off with.

Illustrator is very important and it is best to learn it while you can. All the industries use it and they prefer someone that already knows how to use it than to teach someone to use it.

Make sure to have an updated cv, put all the work/designing I have done between being in education and unemployed so that it shows I am interested in the industry. Get creative with the CV, attach pictures and designs, make it interesting and stand out.

Jobs

Look on the Internet

Printed media, magazine, drapers,

Maybe get in contact now,

get a placement

Work experience

Having a job throughout uni

Being job ready

Biggest baby wear supplier in the uk

38 million turnover

Lose 1-2 designers a year

Big brands – George, tescos, sainsburys Morisons, next, mother care, Matalan, pound land, bhs

Licesnced work – Disney, Warner brothers, mr men and little Mrs, just got star wars

Companies make movies so that they can make good merchandise

Tescos 

Cotton they use has to come from a source that can be backtracked, knowing what field it was picked from. This puts 10% on the price of the garments.

Need to know what factory, where it was printed, where everything is coming from and can be tracked back, good pay, no children working, medical pay.

Internships

‘How many people that have done internships that have got a job out of it?’

Be prepared

I found this chat really useful, it was all based not the industry that I would like to go into and had a lot of information in things that wouldn’t even know about unless  was already in the industry. It has really helped me to be prepared in going into it after I have finished and what I will be doing.

Intellectual Property

On Monday, we had a lecture by Roland Mallinson about intellectual Property.

The golden rule – no golden rule

Copying a dress and making 3/5/10 changes doesn’t make it legal

Protect your own ip

Make sure you don’t inadvertently infringe someone else ip

Two key times when it matters

– risk of plagiarism

– End of degree shows

Life after studies

– employment as a designer

– Starting your own business

What is intellectual property?

– Legal rights protecting rights over the expression of ideas

– It’s a deal with the state

Trade marks

– names, colours, shapes – Burberry

Patents

– Inventions – in Europe it needs to do something, can’t just be an idea

Copyright

– the image, pictures, fine art form

Designs

– clothing, prints,

Who owns the intellectual property?

General position

– designers/creators is the owner,

What can your ip stop? 

Design – same overall impression

How long do they last?

Design- 3 years

Copyright – 70 years after creator dies

Trademark – potentially forever

Patent – 20 years

Cases

An expensive  dress that nasty gal ripped off to sell for £20

Supermarket rip offs

Tablet wars – iPad and Galaxy

Darfurnica: Louis Vuitton vs Nadia plesner

Louis Vuitton bag

What happens if ip rights are infringed?

– right holder takes legal action

– letter before action/cease and desist letter

– litigation if not settled

Other risks

– application for immediate injunction

Breaching a court order

Cases

Gucci v guess shoes

Chloe v top shop

Rihanna v top shop – bought the photo from the photography

Tatty Devine v Claire’s

Posted about it on Facebook

What should I be doing about ip?

 Brand

– choose a good name

– protect it with TM registrations

– use it or lose it

Photographs

– keep reliable records and back ups

– publish low resolution copied

– use digital watermarks and other digital rights

– use C name and date

– license with caution

– consider joining design and artist copyright society

Design and artwork

– pay homage and parody with care

– keep reliable records

– use non- disclose agreements

– publish and license with care

– register your best designs

– consider joining ACID

Rip offs/copies? 

– take care about accusing others

– act quickly

– don’t ignore it

The now and future

Impact of globalisation

Impact of the Internet and digital copying

3D printing

Gill’s Lecture

Intellectual property

– copyright

Chloe v top shop

Rihanna v top shop

Fake clothing/bags/shoes

– trademarks

– patents

– designs

Material costs, labour costs, face value- what it’s worth,

Giving them all the rights

Items being sold at Graduate fashion week

Waiting lists

Looking at the runway to get inspiration on what to buy and get it cheaper elsewhere/on the high street

As soon as it worn by everybody, its not fashion anymore

Christian louboutin – won’t lower his price for lower people

Unlike h&m and Balmain

Places buying the expensive products

Middle East, Japan, China, Russia

Thorstein Veblen – American economist

American apparel – tried to source locally, but going bankrupt

The want wasn’t enough to buy it, it can be bought elsewhere for much less,

Immaterial labour and de-skilling, or, what is the work of the work of art and when does the work of the work of art work?

The (art) worker under Fordism (20th century) 

Material labour , production line, 9-5

work of labour

Martin Heidegger – the origin of the work

Philosophical work

German philosopher – Karl Marx – comment on James mill 1844

‘My work is not my life’ – distinction between working to live and living to work

William Morris – increase of factories means a decrease in hand made

Lewis Hine – spinner in New England 1913

Child labour in factories, machines,

Lewis Hine – use mechanic working in steam pump 1920

Max Webber, the Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism 1905

Deskilling people because machines can do it all

‘I am painting pictures (or rather not pictures)’

January 1969

Art workers coalition

Anti- Vietnam poster by art worker coalition

1960s

Art doesn’t need skill and photography isn’t skilled so it is art

Lucy Lippard – six years: the dematerialisation of art 1973

That artists who are trying to do non object art are coming to a solution to the problem of artists being bought out and sold so easily, along with their art

Yves Klein, zones of immaterial pictorial sensibility 1959-62

Selling pieces of the sky to art collectors, they were given a certificate to show their ownership

Machines

Henry ford- first production line

The cars only come in black

‘You can have it in any colour, as long as it’s black’

More leisure time

Deskilled

Factories for fashion textiles – China, Taiwan

Britain are loosing their mills

William Morris – objected to industrialisation

Post-Fordism

Immaterial labour, intellectual work, networking, flexible work, creativity and individuality, zero hour contract

‘Bit when you buy Starbucks, whether you realise it your buying into something bigger. Your buying them to get comfier chairs, somewhere to work, relax, dream.

The new spirit of capitism, Luc Bokanski and Eve Chiapell, 1999

Artistic critique

Social critique – focuses on inequality, poverty, egoism, and exploitation

Liam Gillick – prototype Erasmus table 2 1994

‘My work is like the light in a fridge, it only work when there are people to open the fridge door, if there isn’t then it is just objects in a room’ Liam Gillick

e-flux

Museum Of creative Art – artist changed the font of website to comic sans

‘Most of our products are shipped from country to country’

More creativity

Individuality

Communication

Lifestyle

Starbucks- relaxing with a cup of coffee, but still getting pings from phone and emails and notifications

Can’t live their life without their phone

Mass production

Can’t control everyone

Shipping – most of it is is mass shipped from other countries because it is cheaper for everyone

Work is a pleasure in society

Everyone has to work for a living

Living to work

Karl Marx

William Morris

Natural dye vs synthetic dye

Old look vs new look

Blue jeans vs faded jeans

I found this lecture quite interesting. I particularly liked it when Gill spoke to us and referenced it to our work. I found it interesting to see the differences in Fordish and post-fordism.

Fashion and Modernity – Gill Morgan

Fashion isn’t universal, it isnt around at all times

Connotations of appearance, style.

Rubén Toledo 2003, fashion machine 

Modernisation- refers to the processes of sciencetific

Modernity – the way that modernisation infiltrates everyday life and permeates sensibilities 
Georg simmell 1903 – ‘the metropolis and mental life’ discusses the indivuals position in the big city urban life and his physiological coping

Sonia Delauney – artist, works strongly with textiles, transportation, 
Fragmentation and 

Clothes original made for the rich 
Charles Frederick worth 1882,
Went to France and designed for the empress, first to label garments, 
20s reflect modernism,  
Society allowed women to do what hatchet want, ditched the chaperones 
Start of handbags, 
1910- skirt suits
1920- hemline moved up, lost the corset and the hourglass silhouette, freedom of movement, exposing the back was better than the breast or legs.
Emancipation of women
Bias cut- sports wear
Coco Chanel- changing clothes for men into for women, androgenist, the LBD, costume jewellery, use of different materials- wool and knitted fabrics  
^2014 collection, sports effecting fashion, 100 years on and still similar
Mariano fortuny – pleated gowns, didn’t need to fold it, throw it, roll it in the suitcase
Fashion magazine, newspaper – bringing the garments to the consumer, vogue 1920s 
People could copy what they saw on the catwalk and make it themselves
Mass media, blogs, tv, 
Increase in single shops and large conglomerates, 
SS14/15 – moderity 

Liberate us from traditional 

Every new fashion is a change from the old fashion, being liberated
Always seeking new, because we don’t want old
Vintage as a trend, new and individuals, trendy not old fashioned 

Modernity
Universal 
Feminism
Desire
Freedom
Expressive 
Cultural
Break from tradition
Fortuny – pleated dresses
Uniform – all dressing similar
Consumerism 
Depersonalisation 
Fragmentation
Liberation – from dresses/corsets, emancipation 
Erational change- they didn’t have to change 
Charles Frederick Worth
Coco channel
Mariano 
Sonia
Schiaparelli 
Caillot sister
Veoney 
Sensibilities – 
Authority – 

Post modernist
Deconstruction
Revival
Alexander McQueen
Vivienne Westwood
Hussein Chalayan
Leigh Bowery
Anti-fashion
Avant Garde – something you wouldn’t wear done the street

The Photographic Image: Taken or Made

Camera – games photo of what the viewer sees

Beach huts – out of  season – recording beach huts and covering data.

Bacher- 26 gasoline stations 1962

Taken or made?

Sailor kiss – constructed, made

Fallen soldier – false image, shadow and no shot, made

The depression years – untruth, they were happy. Social cause photography, empathy and affection, made

Terror of war – captions and full text can change the meaning. Napalm – American army helping the children, made

Shotgun – kids messing around with guns. Cut to only gun, showing that New York is dangerous, made

Investigating the Cultural Landscape

Investigating the Cultural Landscape: Research sources and methodologies

By Sean O’Dell

This lecture was about primary research, what I can do and how I can bring it into my work. To show this Sean spoke about a paper he has been working on for some time, about ‘the origins of domestic post-war holiday making’.

Primary Research

• Visit
• Photography
• document
• analyse
• excavate
• interview
• interact

Places to find primary documentary evidence

• Newspaper article
• National Archive
• Essex Records Office
• Digital resources
• Essex Archive Online

Research can be useful for a fashion and textiles student because it can give us inspiration for any of the pieces that I do. It can also help to see the fashions that have already been done. I go and look at magazines and journals from the past and present can mean we can look into the minds of the most iconic fashion designers and see what they thought and how they made certain pieces.